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A 


COMPENDIOUS  HISTORY 


OF 


ENGLISH    LITERATURE, 


THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE, 


FROM 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST. 


WITH    NUMEROUS     SPECIMENS. 


BY 

GEORGE  L.   CRAIK,   LL.D., 

BOFESSOR  OF   HISTORY   AND   OF   ENGLISH   LITERATURE   IN   QUEEN'S  COLLEGE,  BELFArtl 

IN   TWO   VOLUMES. 
VOL.   L 


NEW  YORK: 

SCRIBNER.,    ARMSTRONG     &     CO., 

1877. 


!^CI 


v.l 


PREFACE. 


In  the  largest  or  loosest  sense  of  the  expression  a 
History  of  English  Literature  might  be  taken  to  mean 
an  account  of  everything  that  has  been  written  in  the 
language.  But  neither  is  the  literature  of  a  language 
everything  that  has  been  written  in  it,  nor  would  all 
that  has  been  written  in  the  language  necessarily  com- 
prehend all  its  literature,  for  much  true  literature  may 
exist,  and  has  existed,  without  having  been  written. 
Literature  is  composed  of  words,  of  thought  reduced 
to  the  form  of  words ;  but  the  words  need  not  be 
written ;  it  is  enough  that  they  be  spoken  or  sung, 
or  even  only  conceived.  All  that  writing  does  is  to 
record  and  preserve  them.  It  no  more  endows  them 
with  any  new  character  than  money  acquires  a  new 
character  by  being  locked  up  in  a  desk  or  paid  into 
a  bank. 

But,  besides  this,  if  the  history  of  a  national  litera- 
ture is  to  have  any  proper  unity,  it  can  rarely  em- 
brace the  language  in  its  entire  extent.  If  it  should 
attempt  to  do  so,  it  would  be  really  the  history  not 
of  one  but  of  several  literatures.  In  some  cases  it 
might  even  be  made  a  question  when  it  was  that  the 
language  properly  began,  at  what  point  of  the  un- 
broken thread — which  undoubtedly  connects  every  form 
of  human  speech  with  a  succession  of  preceding  forms 
out  of  which  it  has  sprung — we  are  to  say  that  an  old 


n  PKKKACE. 

I:in"-ua"-e  has  died  and  a  new  one  come  into  existence  j 
but,  at  any  rate,  even  when  the  hmgiiage  is  admitted 
to  be  the  same,  it  not  unfrequently  differs  almost  as 
inucli  in  two  of  its  stages  as  if  it  were  two  languages. 
We  have  a  conspicuous  example  of  this  in  our  own 
English.  We  may  be  said  to  have  the  language  before 
us  in  complete  continuity  from  the  seventh  century; 
but  the  English  of  the  earliest  portion  of  this  long 
space  of  time,  or  what  is  commonly  called  Anglo-Saxon, 
is  no  more  intelligible  to  an  Englishman  of  the  present 
day  who  has  not  made  it  a  special  study  than  is  Ger- 
man or  Dutch. 

The  case  is  even  a  great  deal  worse  than  that.  Dutch 
and  German  and  other  foreign  tongues  are  living  ;  oiu 
earliest  Eno-lish  has  been  dead  and  buried  for  centuries. 
Nay,  for  a  long  time  even  the  fact  that  it  had  once 
existed  was  all  but  universally  forgotten.  And  even 
since  it  has  come  to  be  once  more  studied  we  know 
it  only  as  a  fossil  —  as  the  dust  and  dry  bones  of  a 
language.  Of  the  literature  written  in  it  we  may  in- 
<leed  acquire  such  a  conception  as  we  might  of  a  liv- 
ing human  being  from  a  skeleton ;  but  nothing  more. 

Of  that  nocturnal  portion  of  our  literature,  as  it  may 
bo  called,  no  critical  survey  is  attempted  in  the  pres- 
ent work.  Only  the  principal  compositions  of  which 
it  consists,  and  the  names  of  their  authors,  are  rapidly 
enumerated  by  way  of  Introduction,  along  with  the 
leading  particulars  of  the  same  kind  belonging  to  the 
histories  of  the  Latin,  the  Welsh,  and  the  Irish  litera- 
tures of  the  same  early  period. 

Tlw  history  of  any  national  literature,  in  fact,  natu- 
lally  divides  itself  into  three  portions,  all  very  distinct 
iVom  one  another,  and  demanding  each  a  treatment  of 
its  own.  First,  there  is  the  portion  which,  as  has  just 
been    said,  mav  bo  named  after  the  night,  not  perhaps 


PREFACE.  vii 

altogether  as  being  the  product  of  a  period  of  dark- 
ness, but  as  lying  now,  from  distance  and  change  of 
circumstances,  in  the  dark  to  us  ;  secondly,  there  is  so 
much  of  that  produced  after  what  seems  to  us  to  have 
been  the  rising  of  the  sun  as  we  can  look  back  upon ; 
thirdly,  there  is  what  belongs  to  our  own  day,  and  lies 
not  behind  us  but  rather  before  us  or  around  us.  Of 
the  three  subjects  thus  presented,  the  first  offers  a  field 
chiefly  for  philological  and  antiquarian  erudition  ;  even 
the  third,  not  being  yet  past,'  does  not  come  properly 
within  the  domain  of  history ;  the  only  one  that  per- 
fectly admits  of  being  treated  historically  is  the  day- 
light or  middle  division.  But  that  is  always  -both  by 
far  the  most  extensive  and  also  in  every  other  respect 
the    most  important. 

The  survey  which  is  taken  in  the  present  work  of 
so  much  of  our  English  literature  as  is  thus  properly 
historical  is  no  doubt  far  from  complete.  Still  it  will 
be  found  to  include  not  only,  of  course,  all  our  writers 
of  the  first  class,  but  also,  I  believe,  all  those,  without 
exception,  who  can  be  regarded  as  of  any  considerable 
distinction.  If  that  be  so,  it  will,  whatever  its  defects 
of  execution,  present  a  view  of  the  whole  subject  of 
which  it  professes  to  treat ;  for  it  is  only  great  names 
and  great  works  that  make  a  literature.  An  account 
of  the  writings  of  Chaucer,  of  Spenser,  of  Shakspeare, 
of  Bacon,  of  Milton,  of  Dryden,  of  Pope,  of  Swift,  of 
Burke,  of  Burns,  of  Cowper,  would  sufficiently  unfold 
the  course  and  revolutions  of  our  English  literature 
from  its  commencement  down  to  the  beerinnino;  of  the 
present  century.  Many  names,  however,  have  also  been 
noticed  in  these  volumes  which  have  no  pretensions  to 
be  considered  as  even  of  second-rate  importance,  but 
vet  some  information  in  rearard  to  which,  if  it  were  no 
more   than   the    date   to  which    each   of  them    belongs, 


VIM  prefacp:. 

might,   it   Avas   thought,   add   to   the    serviceableness    of 
the  work  as  a  book  of  reference. 

Such  brief  notices  are  rather  for  being  turned  to  by 
means  of  the  Index  than  for  straightforward  perusal. 
The  history  of  our  literature,  in  so  far  as  it  is  of  uni- 
versal interest,  is  all  contained  in  the  longer  and  fuller 
accounts;  —  the  space  allotted  to  which,  however,  it  will 
be  obvious,  is  not  in  all  cases  proportioned  to  the  emi- 
nence of  the  writers.  On  the  contrary,  several  writers 
of  the  first  class  whose  works  are  in  the  hands  of 
everybody,  as,  for  example,  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  are 
disposed  of  without  the  critical  remarks  on  them  being 
illustrated  by  any  specimens ;  of  others,  again,  who  are 
less  read  in  the  present  day,  such  as  Chaucer  and 
Spenser  of  earlier.  Swift  and  Burke  of  later,  date,  the 
poetry  and  eloquence  are  amply  exemplified  from  what 
they  have  left  us  that  is  most  characteristic  and  re- 
markable. Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to 
ascertain  the  fact  will  find  how  completely  even  our 
great  poets  and  other  writers  of  the  last  generation 
have  already  fxded  from  the  view  of  the  present  with 
the  most  numerous  class  of  the  educated  and  readin<r 
])ul)lic.  Scarcely  anything  is  generally  read  except  the 
jHiblications  of  the  day.  Yet  nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  no  true  cultivation  can  be  so  acquired.  This 
is  the  extreme  case  of  that  entire  ignorance  of  history 
or  oi"  what  had  been  (lone  in  the  world  before  we  our- 
selves came  into  it,  which  has  been  affirmed,  not  with 
more  point  than  truth,  to  leave  a  person  always  a 
child. 

Having  already  gone  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
present  sul)iect  in  a  work  entitled  Sketches  of  the  His- 
tory of  Literature  and  Learning  in  England,  which  was 
published  in  1844-0,  I  have  only  revised  and  retouched 
here,  and    not   sought    to  rewrite,  whatever  as  it  there 


PREFACE.  IS 

stood  still  sufficiently  expressed  what  I  had  to  say. 
The  present  work,  therefore,  it  will  be  understood, 
comprehends  and  incorporates  all  of  the  former  one 
(now  out  of  print)  which  it  has  been  considered  desir- 
able to  preserve.  It  is,  in  truth,  in  the  main  a  repub- 
lication of  that,  though  with  many  alterations  and  some 
curtailments,  as  well  as  considerable  additions  and  en- 
largements. I  have  even  retained,  though  hardly  com- 
ing under  the  new  title,  the  summaries  of  the  progress 
of  Scientific  Discovery  in  successive  periods,  as  not 
taking  up  very  much  room,  and  supplying  a  good 
many  dates  and  other  facts  which  even  in  following  the 
history  of  Literature  it  is  sometimes  convenient  to  have 
at  hand. 

The  present  work,  on  the  other  hand,  professes  to 
combine  the  history  of  the  Literature  with  the  history 
of  the  Lano-uao-e.  The  scheme  of  the  course  and  rev- 
olutions  of  the  Language  which  is  followed  here,  and 
also  in  the  later  editions  of  my  Sketches  of  the  His- 
tory of  the  English  Language,  was  first  announced  by 
me  in  an  article  published  in  the  Dublin  University 
Magazine  for  July,  1857.  It  is  extremely  simple,  and, 
resting  not  upon  arbitrary  but  upon  natural  or  real 
distinctions,  gives  us  the  only  view  of  the  subject  that 
can  claim  to  be  regarded  as  of  a  scientific  character. 
In  the  earliest  state  in  v/hich  it  is  known  to  us  the 
English  is  both  a  homogeneous  and  a  si/nihetic  language, — 
homogeneous  in  its  vocabulary,  synthetic  in  its  gram- 
matical structure.  It  has  since,  though  of  course  al- 
ways operated  upon,  like  everything  human,  by  the 
law  of  gradual  change,  undergone  only  two  decided 
revolutions ;  the  first  of  which  destroyed  its  synthetic, 
the  second  its  homogeneous,  character.  Thus,  in  its 
second  form  it  is  still  a  homogeneous,  but  no  longer  a 
synthetic,  language  ;    in  its  third,  it  is  neither  synthetic 

VOL.   I.  2 


X  PREFACE 

nor  homogeneous,  but  lias  become  both  analytic  in  its 
grammar  and  composite  in  its  vocabulary.  The  three 
forms  may  be  conveniently  designated :  —  the  First, 
that  of  Pure  or  Simple  English ;  the  Second,  that  of 
Broken  or  Semi-English ;  the  Third,  that  of  Mixed,  or 
Compound,  or  Composite  English.  The  first  of  the 
three  stages  through  which  the  language  has  thus 
passed  may  be  considered  to  have  come  to  an  end  in 
the  eleventh  century;  the  second,  in  the  thirteenth 
century;  the  third  is  that  in  which  it  still  is. 

In  another  paper,  published  in  the  Dublin  University 
Magazine  for  October,  1857,  I  applied  this  view  to  the 
explanation  of  the  action  upon  the  language  of  the 
Norman  Conquest ;  the  immediate  effect  of  which  was 
to  produce  the  first  of  the  two  revolutions,  its  ultimate 
effect  to  produce  the  second.  I  there,  also,  gave  an 
account  of  the  examination  of  the  vocabulary  of  our 
existing  English  instituted  by  Dr.  J.  P.  Thonmierel,  in 
his  Recherches  sur  la  Fusion  du  Franco-Normand  et  de 
I'Anglo-Saxon,  published  at  Paris  in  1841,  in  which  he 
«Khowed,  in  opposition  to  all  previous  estimates,  that,  of 
the  words  collected  in  our  common  dictionaries,  in- 
stead of  two  thirds  being  of  native  origin,  as  usually 
assumed,  and  only  one  third  of  Latin  or  French  extrac- 
tion, the  fact  is  just  the  other  way; — two  thirds  are 
foreign  and  only  one  third  native.  I  proceeded  to  re- 
mark, however,  that  of  the  words  in  connnon  use  both 
in  speaking  and  in  writing,  which  may  be  taken  as 
about  10,U()0  in  number,  probably  full  a  half  are  pure 
English  ;  and  that  of  those  in  common,  colloquial  use, 
wliich  may  be  about  5000  in  all.  probably  four  fifths 
arc  of  native  stock.  "And  the  4000  or  5000  non- 
Roman  words,"  I  added,  "  that  are  in  general  use  (4000 
in  our  common  speech,  5000  in  literary  composition), 
compose  all  the  fundamental  framework  of  the  language, 


PREFACE  Xi 

all  that  may  be  called  its  skeleton  or  bony  structure, 
and  also  perhaps  the  better  part  of  its  muscular  tis- 
sue." 

The  portion  of  our  literature  to  which  the  present 
work  is  properly  speaking  devoted  is  that  of  the  Third 
Form  of  the  Language,  and  may  be  regarded  as  com- 
mencing with  the  poetry  of  Chaucer  in  the  middle  of 
the  fourteenth  century. 

G.  L.  C. 

P.  S.  Upon  more  careful  consideration,  I  find  that  the 
simile  in  the  6th  Iliad  is  not  fairly  represented  in  the 
translation  given  vol.  ii.  p.  546.  Nothing  turns  upon 
it;  but  I  ought  not  to  have  supposed  it  possible  that 
Homer  could  have  been  in  anything  inconsistent  with 
truth  and  nature. 

Queen's  College,  Belfast, 

September,  1861. 


CONTENTS. 


VOL.  I. 

INTRODUCTORY.  p^o, 

literature  and  Language      .         21 

The  Languages  of  Modern  Europe 23 

Early  Latin  Literature  in  Britain 26 

The  Celtic  Languages  and  Literatures 32 

Decay  of  the  Earliest  English  Scholarship 41 

The  English  Language 48 

Original  English:  —  Commonly  called  Saxow,  or  ^n^rZo-^aaron  .     .     .     .62 

THE  NORMAN  PERIOD.— TAe  Con^ues^ 61 

Arabic  and  other  New  Learning 67 

Schools  and  Universities .72 

Rise  of  the  Scholastic  Philosophy .       78 

John  of  Salisbury,     Peter  of  Blois 80 

Classical  Learning.     Mathematics.     Medicine.     Law.     Books       ...      83 
The  Latin  Language  in  England  after  the  Norman  Conquest    ....     87 

The  Latin  Poets.  —  Mapes ;  etc 89 

Latin  Chroniclers.     Collections .     90 

Ingulphus 92 

William  of  Poitiers 94 

Ordericus  Vitalis 96 

Gesta  Stephani.     William  of  Jumieges .     97 

Florence  of  Worcester 98 

Matthew  of  W^estminster .99 

William  of  Malmesbury 100 

Eadmer 101 

Turgot.     Simeon  of  Durham.     John  of  Hexham.     Richard  of  Hexham  102 

Ailred 103 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth.     Alfred  of  Beverley 104 

Giraldus  Cambrensis 106 

Henry  of  Huntingdon >     107 

Roger  de  Hoveden 108 

William  of  Newburgh 109 

Benedictus  Abbas.     Ralph  de  Diceto.     Gervase  of  Canterbury     .     .     .110 

Vinsauf     Richard  of  Devises.    JosceUn  de  Brakelonda 112 

Monastic  Registers 114 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

THE  NORMAN  PERIOD.     (Continued.)  paoi 

Law  Treatises.     Domesday  Book.     Public  Rolls  and  Registers      .     .     .  11.") 

The  French  Lanjuage  in  England 116 

The  Langue  D'dc  and  the  Langue  D'Oyl 121 

Norman  Trouveres.  —  Duke  Richard  I.     Thibaut  de  Vernon.    Turold,  oi 

Theroulde.     Chanson  de  Roland 124 

Anglo-Norman  Poets.  —  King  Henry  I.     His  Queens,  Matilda  and  Alice  1 28 

Philip  de  Than.     Geoffrey,  Abbot  of  St.  Albans 129 

Pilgrimage  of  Saint  Brandan.     Charlemagne 130 

Anglo-Norman  Chroniclers.  —  Gaimar.     David 132 

Wace       134 

Benoit 136 

Everard.  —  French  Language  in  Scotland 137 

Luc  de  la  Bai-re.     Guichard  de  Beaulieu 139 

Arthurian  Romance.  —  The  Saint  Greal.    Luc  du  Gast.    Buron.    Mapes  141 

Roman  du  Roi  Horn 144 

Tristan,  or  Tristrem 145 

Guernes  de  Pont  Sainte  Maxence 146 

Herman 147 

Hugh  of  Rutland.     Boson.     Simon  du  Fresne 147 

Cardinal  Langton 148 

King  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion 149 

Vernacular  Language  and  Literature.  —  A.  d.  1066-1216 150 

The  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Centuries.  —  Ascendency  of  the  Scho- 
lastic Philosophy 161 

Mathematical  and  other  Studies 164 

Universities  and  Colleges 168 

Latin  Historical  Works 171 

Use  and  Study  of  the  Latin  and  Greek,  the  Hebrew  and  other  Oriental 

Tongues       176 

Last  Age  of  the  French  Language  in  England 180 

Anglo-Norman  Poets 183 

French  Prose  Romances.  —  Froissart 188 

Resurrection  of  the  English  Language       190 

SECOND  ENGLISH  :— Commonly  called  Semt-5axon 193 

The  Here  Prophecy 196 

The  Brut  of  Layamon 198 

The  Ormulum 211 

The  Ancren  Riwle 218 

Metrical    Legends.  —  Land    of   Cockayne.      Guldevord.  •    Wille   Gris. 

Early  English  Songs 225 

Early  English  Metrical  Romances 227 

Publications  of  Percy,  Warton,  Tyrwhitt,  Pinkerton,  Herbert,  Ritson, 
Ellis,  Scott,  Weber,  Utterson,  Laing,  Hartshorne ;  the  Roxburghe 
Club,  the  Bannatyne,  the  Maitland,  the  Abbotsford,  the  Camden 

Society 228 


Song  of  Canute 
Archbishop  Aldrc 
St.  Godric's  Hym 
"  Sister 
"  Hym 
Rhyme  of  Flemin 
Hugh  Bigott's  Bo 
The  Here  Prophe 
Layamon's  Brut : 

The  Ormulum :  — 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

PA  as 

Spenser: — Fairy  Queen  ;  Belphoebe 531 

"  "  "  Part  of  Masque  of  Cupid 534 

"  "  "  Artegal  and  the  Giant 541 

Warner: — Albion's  England ;  Old  Man  and  his  Ass 551 

»  "  "  Fall  of  Richard  the  Third 552 

•*  "  "  Part  of  Story  of  Lear 553 

"  "  "  Fair  Rosamond  and  Queen  Eleanor  .     .     .  554 

»♦  "  «'  The  Two  Widows      ........     554 

"  "  "  Lament  over  Ancient  Manners      ....  555 

Daniel  :  —  Musophilus  ;  Defence  of  Poetry 558 

"  "  Instability  of  Opinion 559 

"  "  The  Poet  a  World  to  himself 660 

"  Epistle  to  Countess  of  Cimibei'land    .     .     .     ." 561 

Drayton: — Polyolbion  ;  Stag-hunt 563 

"  Nymphidia;  Queen  of  the  Fairies 567 

Sylvester:  —  Divine  Weeks  and  Works ;  Part  of  Dedication        ....     570 

"  "  "  "  Praise  of  Night 571 

Chapman:  —  Iliad;  Visit  to  Chrysa 574 

"  "        Punishment  of  Thamyris 574 

Drummond :  7- Sonnet 577 

Donne :  —  Song 580 

*»  Elegjr  682 


HISTORY 


ENGLISH    LITERATURE. 


LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Ik  tracing,  as  it  is  our  purpose  to  do  in  the  present  work,  the 
history  of  English  Literature  and  of  the  Enghsh  Language  to- 
gether, we  shall  be  obliged  to  look  at  the  language  principally,  or 
almost  exclusively,  as  we  find  it  employed  in  the  service  of  the 
literature.  But  in  its  proper  nature  language  is  independent  of 
writing.  Writing  is  only  a  visible  representation  of  language, 
which  in  itself  consists,  not  of  strokes  drawn  by  the  pen,  or  mai'ks 
made  in  any  other  way,  but  of  sounds  uttered  by  the  voice  and 
the  organs  of  articulation.  It  addresses  itself  not  to  the  eye  but 
to  the  ear.  There  are  many  languages  that  have  never  been  writ- 
ten, or  visibly  represented  in  any  form.  Every  language  that  has 
come  to  be  written  has  also  existed  in  an  unwritten  state.  No 
language  has  been  born  a  Avritten  language,  any  more  than  it  was 
ever  heard  tell  of  that  a  boy  had  been  born  with  breeches  on.  It 
has  been  common  to  talk  of  language,  which  is  really  thought 
itself,  as  the  dress  of  thought ;  with  much  more  truth  might  writ- 
ing be  called  the  dress  of  language.  It  is  an  artificial  or  non- 
natural  addition  which  language  assumes  as  it  grows  up  and  gets 
civilized,  —  something  that  perhaps  would  not  have  been  needed 
or  thought  of  in  a  state  of  innocence.  As  matters  stand,  this  con- 
trivance may  h4  necessary  for  the  perfect  training  of  language,  for 
turning  it  to  its  full  rase  and  developing  all  its  capabilities  ;  but  still 
it  is  in  some  sort  what  his  trappings  are  to  the  war-horse,  —  a  sign 
and  seal  of  its  conquest  and  bondage.  Letters  are  the  fetters  of 
language,  even  if  they  are  its  golden  fetters. 

It  would  be  convenient  if  we  had  distinctive  names  for  language 
cpoken  and  language  written.     In  the  want  of  such,  perhaps  the 


22  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

best  tiling  that  could  be  done  in  a  precisely  scientific  treatment  of 
the  subject  would  be  to  understiind  the  common  terms  languagt 
and  speech  when  used  absolutely,  or  without  qualification,  as  mean- 
ing always  only  language  proper  or  spoken  language,  —  which  is 
what  these  words,  and  the  only  corresponding  ones  probably  in  all 
languages,  do  mean  etymologically,  —  and  to  distinguish  written 
language  as  language  representative.  But  for  ordinary  pui-poses 
this  is  not  necessary;  as  in  other  cases,  the  context  makes  the 
sense  clear,  notwithstanding  the  insufficiency  of  the  expression. 

What  is  never  to  be  forgotten,  however,  is,  that,  while  writing 
is  unquestionably  and  by  universal  admission  artificial,  language 
proper  is  essentially  a  natural  product.  It  is  simply  to  man  what 
neighing  is  to  the  horse  or  lowing  to  the  bullock.  A  race  or  com- 
munity of  human  beings  without  a  lang-uage  would  be  as  extraor- 
cUnary  a  phenomenon  as  a  race  without  hands  or  without  heads. 
Human  beings  formed  as  they  ordinarily  are,  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe,  could  no  more  grow  up,  at  least  in  a  state  of  association, 
without  speech  than  they  could  without  eating  or  without  breath- 
mg.  It  is  the  natural,  the  spontaneous,  the  inevitable  result  of 
their  organization.  Language,  that  is,  not  merely  the  utterance 
of  articulate  sounds,  but  the  employment  of  Avords  for  the  expres- 
sion of  thought,  or  wdiat  we  may  call  the  conversion  of  thought 
into  words,  is  probably  as  much  a  necessity  of  the  organization, 
physical  and  mental,  of  the  human  being  as  it  is  an  impossibility 
for  that  of  any  of  the  inferior  animals. 

As  for  literature,  it  is  not  the  synonyme  even  of  written  lan- 
guage. It  is  not  either  coextensive  with  that,  or  limited  to  that. 
For  want  of  a  better  term,  we  call  artistic  composition  in  words, 
or  thought  artistically  so  expressed,  literature  ;  but,  on  the  one 
hand,  there  is  abundance  of  writing,  and  of  printing  too,  which 
is  not  literature  in  this  proper  sense,  and,  on  the  other,  it  is  not  a 
necessity  of  artistic  composition  that  it  should  be  in  a  written  form. 
Literature,  therefore,  whatever  the  etymology  of  the  term  may 
seem  to  indicate,  has  no  essential  connection  with  letters. 

And  its  connection  even  with  language,  which  is  essential,  is 
Btill  no  more  than  such  a  connection  as  is  created  by  the  fact  that 
'iterature  consists  necessarily  of  words.  It  is  of  thought  and  emo- 
tion transfonued  into  or  manifested  in  language  that  the  fabric  of 
literature  is  woven.  But  literature  is  not,  like  language,  a  neces- 
sary  product   of  our   humanity.     Man   has   been   nowhere   found 


THE   LANGUAGES   OF  MODERN   EUROrE.  23 

^^^tllout  a  language  :  there  have  been  and  are  many  nations  and 
races  without  a  hterature.  A  language  is  to  a  people  a  necessary 
of  existence  ;  a  literature  is  only  a  luxury.  Hence  it  sometimes 
iiappens  that  the  origin  of  a  nation's  literature,  and  the  influences 
which  have  inspired  and  moulded  it,  have  been  more  or  less  dis- 
tinct from  the  sources  whence  the  language  has  taken  its  begin- 
ning and  the  inner  operating  spirit  or  external  circumstances  which 
have  modified  its  shape  and  character.  The  literature  will  gen- 
erally be  acted  upon  by  the  language,  and  the  language  by  the 
literature  ;  but  each  may  have  also  had  fountains  of  its  own  at 
which  the  other  has  not  drunk.  Thus,  for  example,  it  may  be 
affirmed  that  even  those  nations  of  modern  Europe  which  owe 
their  language  mostly  to  the  Romans  have  derived  their  literature 
and  fine  art  of  every  other  form,  as  well  as  their  spirit  of  philo- 
sophical speculation,  to  a  much  greater  extent  from  the  Greeks. 
Here  too  the  modern  world  has  inherited  from  Rome  the  useful 
and  necessary,  from  Greece  the  refined  and  ornamental ;  —  from 
the  one,  language,  along  with  law  and  government,  the  art  of 
war  offensive  arid  defensive,  and  the  common  arts  of  life  ;  from 
the  other,  that  which,  although  not  the  feeding  fruit  of  the  tree 
or  plant,  but  only  its  crowning  flower,  yet  alone  constitutes  true 
civiKzation. 


THE  LANGUAGES  OF  MODERN  EUROPE. 

There  have  in  every  age  been  some  populations  which,  for  ond 
reason  or  another,  have  deemed  it  necessary  or  expedient  to  have 
each  more  than  one  language.  Both  in  ancient  and  in  modern 
times  this  has  been  usual  with  the  inhabitants  of  border  districts. 
Herodotus  mentions  some  northern  races  of  his  day  who  were  all 
familiar  with  Greek  as  well  as  with  their  own  barbaric  speech.  In 
some  countries,  in  addition  to  the  common  tongue,  there  has  been 
another  known  only  to  the  priesthood :  in  some  the  men  have  had 
a  language  of  their  own,  which  the  women  were  not  permitted  to 
speak  or  to  learn.  It  is  perhaps  to  be  regretted  that  the  use  of  two 
languages  has  not  been  universal  in  civilized  countries ;  it  might 
probably  be  almost  as  easily  acquired  as  the  ordinary  power  of 
speaking  one  language.  Possibly  this  may  be  one  of  the  educa- 
tional, or  rather  social,  reforms  of  another  era. 


24  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Some  of  the  existing  European  nations  or  races  are  distributed 
under  several  governments :  there  are  still  several  political  com- 
munities, for  instance,  both  of  Germans  and  of  Italians,  and  that 
although  Germany  and  Italy  form  each  geographically  only  one 
region.  But  in  other  cases  a  community  occupying  only  one  coun- 
try, and  living  under  one  and  the  same  government,  consists  of 
several  races  each  having  a  language  of  its  own.  In  this  way 
it  happens  that,  without  including  what  are  called  dialects,  the 
number  of  distinct  languages  in  Europe,  though  it  falls  short  of  the 
number  of  political  communities,  exceeds  the  number  of  what  we  can 
properly  call  nations.  Some  languages,  again,  such  as  the  Welsh, 
the  Irish,  and  the  Basque,  are  no  longer  national  forms  of  speech. 

The  existing  European  languages  may  be  nearly  all  compre- 
hended under  five  di^dsions.  First,  there  are  the  Celtic  tongues 
of  Ireland  and  Wales,  and  their  subordinate  varieties.  Secondly, 
there  are  the  tongues  founded  upon  the  Latin  spoken  by  the  old 
Romans,  and  thence  called  the  Romance  or  the  Neo-Latin,  that  is, 
the  New  Latin,  tongues ;  of  these  the  principal  are  the  Italian,  the 
Spanish,  and  the  French  ;  the  Romaic,  or  Modern  Greek,  may  be 
included  under  the  same  head.  Thirdly,  there  are  what  have  been 
variously  designated  the  Germanic,  Teutonic,  or  Gothic  tongues, 
being  those  which  were  originally  spoken  by  the  various  barbarian 
races  by  whom  the  Roman  empire  of  the  West  was  overthrown 
and  overwhelmed  (or  at  the  least  subjugated,  revolutionized,  and 
broken  up)  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centiu'ies.  Fourthly,  there  are 
the  Slavonic  tongues,  of  which  the  Russian  and  the  Polish  are  the 
most  distinguished.  Fifthly,  there  are  the  Tschudic  tongues,  as 
they  have  been  denominated,  or  those  spoken  by  the  Finnic  and 
Laponnic  races.  Almost  the  only  language  which  this  enumera- 
tion leaves  out  is  that  still  preserved  by  the  French  and  Spanish 
Biscayans,  and  known  as  the  Basque,  or  among  those  who  speak  it 
as  the  Euskarian,  which  seems  to  stand  alone  among  the  tongues 
not  only  of  Eui'oj)e  but  of  the  world.  It  is  supposed  to  be  a  rem- 
nant (tf  the  ancient  Il)erian  or  original  language  of  Spain. 

The  order  in  which  the  five  sets  or  classes  of  languages  have 
been  named  may  be  regarded  as  that  of  their  probable  introduc- 
.inn  into  Europe  from  Asia  or  the  East,  or  at  any  rate  of  theii 
establishment  in  the  localities  of  which  they  are  now  severally  in 
possession.  First,  a])parentlv,  came  the  Celtic,  now  driven  on  to 
the  farthest  west;  —  after  which  followed  in  succession  the  Latin, 


THE   LANGUAGES    OF   MODERN  EUROPE.  25 

the  Gothic,  the  Slavonic,  and  the  Tschudic,  pressing  upon  and 
urging  forward  one  another  hke  so  many  waves. 

Their  present  geographical  position  may  also  be  set  forth  in  few 
words.  Those  of  the  Celtic  type  are  fomid,  as  just  mentioned,  in 
the  West,  the  Latin  generally  in  the  South,  the  Slavonic  in  the 
East,  the  Tschudic  in  the  North,  and  the  Gothic  over  the  whole 
of  the  central  region.  The  chief  exception  is,  that  one  Tschudic 
language,  the  Madgyar,  is  spoken  in  Hungary,  at  the  south-eastern 
extremity  of  Europe. 

The  English  is  essentially  or  fundamentally  a  Gothic  tongue. 
That  is  to  say,  it  is  to  be  classed  among  those  which  were  spoken 
by  the  main  division  of  the  barbaric  invaders  and  conquerors  of 
the  Roman  empire,  and  which  are  now  spread  over  the  whole  of 
the  central  portion  of  the  European  continent,  or  what  we  may 
call  the  body  of  Europe  as  distinguished  from  its  head  and  limbs. 
These  Gothic  tono-ues  have  been  subdi^nded  into  the  Hisjh-Ger- 
manic,  the  Low-Germanic,  and  the  Scandinavian  ;  and  each  of 
these  subordinate  groups  or  clusters  has  a  certain  character  of  its 
own  in  addition  to  the  common  character  by  which  they  are  all 
allied  and  discriminated  from  those  belonging  to  quite  other  stocks. 
They  may  be  said  to  present  different  shades  of  the  same  color. 
And  even  in  their  geographical  distribution  they  lie  as  it  were  in 
so  many  successive  ridges  ;  —  the  High-Germanic  languages  far- 
thest south  ;  next  to  them,  the  Low-Germanic,  in  the  middle  ;  and 
then,  farthest  north,  the  Scandinavian.  The  High-Germanic  may 
be  considered  to  be  principally  represented  by  the  modern  classic 
German  ;  the  Low-Germanic  by  the  language  of  the  people  of 
Holland,  or  what  we  call  the  Low  Dutch,  or  simply  the  Dutch ; 
the  Scandinavian,  by  the  SwecHsh,  Danish,  or  Icelandic. 

It  may  be  remarked,  too,  that  the  gradation  of  character  among 
the  three  sets  of  languages  corresponds  to  their  geographical  posi- 
tion. That  is  to  say,  their  resemblance  is  in  proportion  to  their 
proximity.  Thus,  the  High-Germanic  and  the  Scandinavian  groups 
are  both  nearer  in  character,  as  well  as  in  position,  to  the  Low- 
Germanic  than  they  are  to  each  other  ;  and  the  Low-Germanic 
tongues,  lying  in  the  middle,  form  as  it  were  a  sort  of  link,  or 
bridge,  between  the  other  two  extreme  groups.  Climate,  and  the 
relative  elevation  of  the  three  regions,  may  have  something  to  do 
with  this.  The  rough  and  full-mouthed  pronunciation  of  the  High- 
n  ?,rmanic  tongues,  with  their  broad  vowels  and  guttural  combina- 

VOL.   I.  4 


26  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

tions,  may  be  the  natiu'al  product  of  the  bracing  mountain-air  of 
the  south  ;  the  clearer  and  neater  articulation  of  the  Low-Germanic 
ones,  that  of  the  milder  influences  of  the  plain  ;  the  thinner  and 
sharper  sounds  of  the  Scandinavian  group,  that  of  the  more  chill 
and  pinching  hyperborean  atmosphere  in  which  they  have  grown 
up  and  been  formed. 


EARLY   LATIN   LITERATURE   IN   BRITAIN. 

When  the  South  of  Britain  became  a  part  of  the  Roman  empire, 
the  inhabitants,  at  least  of  the  towns,  seem  to  have  adopted  gener- 
ally the  Latin  language  and  applied  themselves  to  the  study  of  the 
Latin  literature.  The  diffusion  amono;  them  of  this  new  taste  was 
one  of  the  fii'st  means  employed  by  their  politic  conquerors,  as  soon 
as  they  had  fairly  established  themselves  in  the  island,  to  rivet  their 
dominion.  A  more  efficacious  they  could  not  have  devised ;  and, 
happily,  it  was  also  the  best  fitted  to  turn  their  subjugation  into  a 
blessing  to  the  conquered  people.  Agricola,  having  spent  the  first 
year  of  his  administration  in  establishing  in  the  province  the  order 
and  tranquillity  which  is  the  first  necessity  of  the  social  condition, 
and  the  indispensable  basis  of  all  civilization,  did  not  allow  another 
winter  to  pass  without  beginning  the  work  of  thus  training  up  the 
national  mind  to  a  Roman  character.  Tacitus  informs  us  that  he 
took  measures  for  having  the  sons  of  the  chiefs  educated  in  the 
liberal  arts,  exciting  them  at  the  same  time  by  professing  to  prefer 
the  natural  genius  of  the  Britons  to  the  studied  acquirements  of  the 
Gavds ;  the  efiect  of  which  was,  that  those  who  lately  had  disdained 
to  use  the  Roman  toneue  now  became  ambitious  of  excellino;  in 
eloquence.  In  later  times,  schools  were  no  doubt  established  and 
maintained  in  all  the  principal  towns  of  Roman  Britain,  as  they 
were  throughout  the  empire  in  general.  There  are  still  extant 
many  imperial  edicts  relating  to  these  public  seminaries,  in  which 
privileges  are  conferred  upon  the  teachers,  and  regulations  laia 
down  as  to  the  manner  in  which  they  were  to  be  appointed,  the 
nalaries  they  were  to  receive,  and  the  branches  of  learning  they 
were  to  teach.  But  no  account  of  the  British  schools  in  particulai 
has  beein  preserved.  It  would  appear,  however,  that,  for  some 
time  at  least,  tlie  older  schools  of  Gaul  were  resorted  to  by  the 


EARLY  LATIN  LITERATURE.  27 

Britons  who  pursued  the  study  of  the  law :  Juvenal,  who  lived  in 
the  end  of  the  first  and  the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  speaks, 
in  one  of  his  Satires,  of  eloquent  Gaul  instructing  the  pleaders  of 
Britain.  But  even  already  forensic  acquu-ements  must  have  be- 
come very  general  in  the  latter  country  and  the  surrounding 
regions,  if  we  may  place  any  reliance  on  the  assertion  which  he 
makes  in  the  next  hne,  that  in  Thule  itself  people  now  talked  of 
hiring  rhetoricians  to  manage  their  causes.  Thule,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  particular  island  or  country  to  which  that  name  was 
given,  was  the  most  northern  land  known  to  the  ancients. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that,  while  a  good  many  names  of 
natives  of  Gaul  are  recorded  in  connection  with  the  last  age  of 
Roman  literature,  scarcely  a  British  name  of  that  period  of  any 
literary  reputation  lias  been  preserved,  if  we  except  a  few  which 
figure  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  poet  Ausonius, 
who  flourished  in  the  fourth  century,  makes  frequent  mention  of 
a  contemporary  British  writer  wdiom  he  calls  Sylvius  Bonus,  and 
whose  native  name  is  supposed  to  have  been  Coil  the  Good  ;  but 
of  his  works,  or  even  of  their  titles  or  subjects,  we  know  nothing. 
Ausonius,  who  seems  to  have  entertained  strong  prejudices  against 
the  Britons,  speaks  of  Sylvius  with  the  same  animosity  as  of  the 
rest  of  his  countrymen.  Of  ecclesiastical  writers  in  Latin  belong- 
ing to  the  sixth  century,  the  heresiarch  Pelagius  and  his  disciple 
Celestius,  St.  Patrick,  the  apostle  of  Ireland,  with  his  friend  Bishop 
Secundinus,  and  the  poet  Sedulius,  are  generally  regarded  as  hav- 
ing been  natives  of  the  British  islands. 

Gildas,  our  earliest  historian  of  whom  anything  remains,  also 
wrote  in  Latin.  St.  Gildas  the  Wise,  as  he  is  styled,  w^as  a  son 
of  Caw,  Prince  of  Strathclyde,  in  the  capital  of  which  kingdom, 
the  town  of  Alcluyd,  now  Dunbarton,  he  is  supposed  to  have  been 
born  about  the  end  of  the  fifth  or  beginning  of  the  sixth  century. 
Caw  was  also  father  of  the  famous  bard  Aneurin  :  one  theory, 
indeed,  is  that  Aneurin  and  Gildas  were  the  same  person.  In 
his  youth  Gildas  is  said  to  have  gone  over  to  Ireland,  and  to  have 
studied  in  the  schools  of  the  old  national  learning  that  still  flour- 
ished there  ;  and,  like  his  brother  Aneurin,  (if  Aneurin  was  his 
orother,)  he  also  commenced  his  career  as  a  bard,  or  composer 
of  poetry  in  his  native  tongue.  He  was  eventually,  however,  con- 
verted to  Christianity,  and  became  a  zealous  preacher  of  his  new 
i-eligion.     The  greater  part  of  his  life  appears  to  have  been  spent 


28  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

in  Ills  native  island  ;  but  at  last  lie  retii-ed  to  Armorica,  or  Little 
Britain,  on  the  Continent,  and  died  there.  He  is  said  to  lie  buried 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Vannes.  Gildas  is  the  author  of  two  declama- 
tory effusions,  the  one  commonly  known  as  his  History  (De  Excidic 
Britanniae  Liber  Querulus),  the  other  as  his  "Epistle  (De  Excidio 
Britannige  et  Britonum  Exulatione),  which  have  been  often  printed. 
The  latest  edition  is  that  contamed  in  the  Monumenta  Historica 
Britannica,  1848  ;  and  there  is  also  an  edition  prepared  by  Mr. 
Joseph  Stevenson  for  the  English  Historical  Society,  8vo.  London : 
1834.  A  translation  of  the  Epistle  was  published  in  1638  ;  and 
both  works  are  included  in  Dr.  Giles's  Six  Old  English  Chronicles, 
1848.  They  consist  principally  of  violent  invectives  directed  against 
his  own  countrymen  as  well  as  their  continental  invaders  and  con- 
querors ;  and  throw  but  little  light  upon  the  obscure  period  to 
which  they  relate. 

Our  next  historical  writer  is  Nennius,  said  to  have  been  a  monk 
of  Bangor,  and  to  have  escaped  from  the  massacre  of  his  brethren 
in  613.  He  too,  like  Gildas,  is  held  to  have  been  of  Welsh  or 
Cumbrian  origin  :  his  native  name  is  conjectured  to  have  been 
Ninian.  But  there  is  much  obscurity  and  confusion  in  the  ac- 
counts we  have  of  Nennius :  it  appears  to  be  probable  that  there 
were  at  least  two  early  historical  writers  of  that  name.  The  au- 
thor of  a  late  ingenious  Avork  supposes  that  the  true  narrative  of 
the  ancient  Nennius  only  came  down  to  the  invasion  of  Julius 
Caesar,  and  is  now  lost,  although  we  probably  have  an  abridgment 
of  it  in  the  British  History  (Eulogium  Britannia?,  sive  Historia 
Britonum),  published  by  Gale  in  his  Scriptores  Quindecim,  Oxon. 
1691,  which,  however,  is  expressly  stated  in  the  preface  by  the 
autlior  himself  to  have  been  drawn  up  in  858.^  A  very  valuable 
edition  of  "  The  Historia  Britonum,  commonly  attributed  to  Nen- 
nius, from  a  MS,  lately  discovered  in  the  Library  of  the  Vatican 
Palace  at  Rome,"  was  published  in  8vo,  at  London,  in  1819,  by 
the  Rev.  W.  Gunn,  B.D.,  rector  of  Irstead,  Norfolk  ;  and  his 
greatly  improved  text  has  been  chicsfly  followed  in  the  subsequent 
edition  ])repared  by  Mr.  Stevenson  ibr  the  Historical  Society  (8vo. 
London,  1838).  The  most  complete  text,  however,  is  probably 
fhat  given  in  the  Monumenta  Historica  Britannica,  from  a  collation 

1  "  liritannia  after  the  Romans,  being  an  Attempt  to  illustrate  the  Religious  and 
J*olitical  Hovolutions  of  tliat  Province  in  the  Filth  and  succeeding  Centuries  [By 
the  late  Hon   Algernon  Herbert] ;  vol.  i.  4to.  1836,  pp.  21,  22." 


EARLY    LATIN   LITERATURE.  29 

of  no  fewer  than  twenty-six  manuscripts.  An  English  version, 
originally  published  by  Mr.  Gunn  in  his  edition  of  the  Vatican 
text,  is  reprinted  by  Dr.  Giles  in  his  Six  Old  English  Chronicles. 
But  the  most  curious  and  important  volume  connected  with  Nen- 
nius  is  that  published  in  1847  by  the  Irish  Archseological  Society, 
containing  an  Irish  version  of  his  History  executed  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  with  a  translation  and  Notes  by  Dr.  Todd,  together  with 
a  large  mass  of  Additional  Notes,  and  an  Introduction,  by  the  Hon. 
Algernon  Herbert,  who  has  here  discussed  nearly  all  the  leading 
questions  in  the  obscure  region  of  early  British  antiquities  with 
profuse  learning,  and  at  the  same  time,  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  some  of  his  conclusions,  with  an  ingenuity  and  freshness  still 
more  rare  and  valuable. 

Of  the  Latin  writers  among  the  Angles  and  Saxons  any  of  whose 
works  remain,  the  most  ancient  is  AJdhe^m,  abbot  of  Malmesbury, 
and  afterwards  the  first  bishop  of  Sherborn,  who  died  in  709. 
Aldhelm  was  of  the  stock  of  the  kings  of  Wessex,  and  was  initiated 
in  Greek  and  Latin  learning  at  the  school  in  Kent  presided  over  by 
the  Abbot  Adrian,  who,  like  his  friend  Archbishop  Theodore,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  native  of  Asia  Minor,  so  that  Greek  was  his 
native  tongue.  We  are  assured  by  one  of  his  biographers  that 
Aldhelm  could  write  and  speak  Greek  like  a  native  of  Greece. 
He  also  early  associated  himself  with  the  monastic  brotherhood  of 
Malmesbury,  or  Meildulfesbyrig,  that  is,  burgh  or  town  of  Meil- 
dulf,  Maildulf,  or  Meldun,  an  Irish  exile,  by  whom  the  monasteiy 
had  been  founded  about  half  a  century  before  the  birth  of  Aldhelm. 
Among  the  studies  of  Aldhelm's  after-life  are  mentioned  the  Ro- 
man law,  the  rules  of  Latin  prosody,  arithmetic,  astronomy,  and 
astrology.  He  is  said  to  have  written  a  tract  on  the  great  scientific 
question  of  the  age,  the  proper  method  of  computing  Easter.  Ald- 
helm's favorite  subject,  however,  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
virtue  of  virginity,  in  praise  of  which  he  wrote  first  a  copious  trea- 
tise in  prose  and  then  a  long  poem.  Both  of  these  performances 
are  preserved,  and  have  been  printed.  Aldhelm  long  enjoyed  the 
highest  reputation  for  learning ;  but  his  writings  are  chiefl}'  remark- 
able for  their  elaborately  unnatural  and  fantastic  rhetoric.  His 
Latin  style  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  pedantic  English,  frill 
of  alliteration  and  all  sorts  of  barbarous  quaintness,  that  was  fash- 
ionable among  our  theological  writers  in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth 
uiid  James  the  First. 


50  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

But  the  Enirlish  name  of  the  times  before  the  Norman  Conquest 
that  is  most  distinguished  in  literature  is  that  of  Beda,  or  Bede, 
upon  whom  tlie  epithet  of  "The  Venerable"  has  been  justly  be- 
stowed by  the  respect  and  gratitude  of  posterity.  All  that  we  have 
written  by  Bede  is  in  the  Latin  lai.iTuage.  He  was  born  some  time 
between  the  yeai's  672  and  677,  at  Jarrow,  a  village  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Tyne,  in  the  county  of  Durham,  and  was  educated  in  the 
neighboring  monastery  of  Wearmouth  under  its  successive  abbots 
Benedict  and  Ceolfi-id.  He  resided  here,  as  he  tells  us  himself, 
from  the  age  of  seven  to  that  of  twelve,  during  which  time  he 
applied  himself  with  all  diligence,  he  says,  to  the  meditation  of  the 
Scriptures,  the  observance  of  regular  discipline,  and  the  daily  prac- 
tice of  singing  in  the  church.  "  It  was  always  sweet  to  me,"  he 
adds,  "  to  learn,  to  teach,  and  to  write."  In  his  nineteenth  year 
he  took  deacon's  orders,  and  in  his  thirtieth  he  was  ordained  priest. 
From  this  date  till  his  death,  in  735,  he  remained  in  his  monastery, 
giving  up  his  whole  time  to  study  and  writing.  His  principal  task 
was  the  composition  of  his  celebrated  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Eng- 
Jand,  which  he  brought  to  a  close  in  his  fiHyHiinth  year.  irTs'  our 
chief  original  authority  for  the  earlier  portion  even  of  the  civil 
history  of  the  English  nation.  But  Bede  also  wrote  many  other 
works,  among  which  he  has  himself  enumerated,  in  the  brief  ac- 
(tount  he  gives  of  his  life  at  the  end  of  his  Ecclesiastical  History, 
Commentaries  on  most  of  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
and  the  Apocrypha,  two  books  of  Homilies,  a  Martyrology,  a  chron- 
ological treatise  entitled  On  the  Six  Ages,  a  book  on  orthography, 
a  book  on  the  metrical  art,  and  various  other  theological  and  bio- 
graphical treatises.  He  likewise  composed  a  book  of  hymns  and 
another  of  epigrams.  Most  of  these  Avntings  have  been  preserved, 
and  have  been  repeatedly  printed.  The  first  edition  of  the  Ecclesi- 
astical History  is  without  date,  but  it  pro})ably  a])peared  at  Eslingen, 
in  Germany,  between  1471  and  1475.  Three  other  continental 
editions  followed  before  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century ;  and  no 
fewer  than  nine  more  in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth.  The  first 
edition  printed  in  England  was  that  of  Abraham  Wheloc,  foho, 
Cambridge,  1644,  accompanied  by  the  old  vernacular  translation 
attributed  to  King  Alfred,  then  also  for  the  first  time  given  to 
the  world  through  the  press  ;  this  was  followed  by  the  Jesuit  Chi- 
Het's  edition,  4to.  Paris,  1681  ;  then  came  Dr.  Smith's  greatly 
improved  edition  both  of  the  original  Latin  and  of  Alfi'ed's  trans- 


EARLY  LATIN   LITERATURE.  31 

(ation,  folio,  Cambridge,  1722  ;  and  this  remained  the  standard 
edition  till  the  appearance  of  that  of  Mr.  Stevenson  (containing 
also  the  Minor  Historical  Works),  vmder  the  auspices  of  the  English 
Historical  Society,  in  2  vols.  8vo.  1838-41,  and  of  that  of  Mr. 
Petrie,  in  the  Monumenta,  folio,  1848.  There  are  three  continen- 
tal editions  of  the  entire  works  of  Bede,  each  in  eight  volmnes  folio, 
the  latest  of  which  was  published  at  Cologne  in  1688.  Some  ad- 
ditional pieces  were  published  at  London  in  a  quarto  volume,  by 
Henry  Wharton,  in  1693  ;  and  an  edition  of  the  complete  works 
of  Bede  in  the  original  Latin,  accompanied  with  a  translation,  was 
produced  by  Dr.  Giles,  in  12  vols.  8vo.  London,  1843-44.  It 
appears,  fi-om  an  interesting  account  of  Bede's  last  hours  by  his 
pupil  St.  Cuthbert,  that  he  was  engaged  at  the  time  of  his  death  in 
translating  St.  John's  Gospel  into  his  native  tongue.  Among  his 
last  utterances  to  his  affectionate  disciples  watching  around  his  bed 
were  some  recitations  in  the  English  language  :  "  For,"  says  the 
account,  "  he  was  veiy  learned  in  our  songs  ;  and,  putting  his 
thoughts  into  English  verse,  he  spoke  it  with  compunction." 

Beside  King  Alfred's  version  in  the  earlier  form  of  the  language, 
there  are  translations  of  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History  into  modem 
English  by  Thomas  Stapleton  (1565),  by  John  Stevens  (1723), 
and  by  W.  Hurst  (1814).  Stevens's  ti-anslation,  altered  and  cor- 
rected, was  reproduced  by  Dr.  Giles  in  1840,  and  again  in  1842  ; 
and  it  is  given  also  boCh  in  his  edition  of  the  complete  works  of 
Bede,  and,  along  with  his  translation  of  the  Chronicle,  in  one  of 
the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library,  1849.  Finally,  a  new 
translation  of  all  Bede's  Historical  Works  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Ste- 
venson forms  the  second  part  of  volume  first  of  the  collection  enti- 
tled The  Church  Historians  of  England,  London,  1853-54. 

Another  celebrated  English  churchman  of  this  age  was  St.  Boni- 
face, originally  named  Winfrith,  who  was  born  in  Devonshire  about 
the  year  680.  Boniface  is  acknowledged  as  the  Apostle  of  Germany, 
in  which  country  he  founded  various  monasteries,  and  was  greatly 
instrumental  in  the  diffusion  both  of  Christianity  and  of  civilization. 
He  eventually  became  ai-chbishop  of  Mentz,  and  was  killed  in  East 
Friesland  by  a  band  of  heathens  in  755.  Many  of  his  letters  to 
the  popes,  to  the  English  bishops,  to  tlie  kings  of  France,  and  to 
the  kings  of  the  various  states  of  his  native  country,  still  remain, 
and  are  printed  in  the  collections  entitled  Bibliothec.ne  Patrmn. 
We  may  liere  also  mention  another  contemporaiy  of  Bede's,  Ed 


32  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

dius,  surnamed  Stephanus,  the  author  of  a  Latin  hfe  of  Bishop 
Wilfrid.  Bede  mentions  him  as  the  first  person  who  taught  sing- 
ing in  the  churches  of  Northimiberland. 


THE   CELTIC   LANGUAGES  AND   LITERATURES. 

No  other  branch  of  what  is  called  the  Indo-European  family  of 
languages  is  of  higher  interest  in  certain  points  of  view  than  the 
Celtic.  The  various  known  forms  of  the  Celtic  are  now  regarded 
as  coming  under  two  great  divisions,  the  Gaelic  and  the  Cymric ; 
Ireland  being  the  head  seat  of-  the  Gaelic  (which  may  therefore 
also  be  called  Irish),  Wales  being  the  head  seat  of  the  Cymric 
(which  accordingly  is  by  the  English  commonly  called  Welsh). 
Subordinate  varieties  of  the  Irish  are  the  Gaelic  of  Scotland  (often 
called  Erse,  or  Ersh,  that  is,  Irish),  and  the  Manks,  or  Isle  of  Man 
tongue  (now  fast  dying  out)  :  other  C}anric  dialects  are  the  Cor- 
nish (now  extinct  as  a  spoken  language),  and  the  Armorican,  or 
that  still  spoken  in  some  parts  of  Bretagne. 

The  probability  is,  that  the  various  races  inhabiting  the  British 
islands  when  they  first  became  known  to  the  civilized  world  were 
mostly,  if  not  all,  of  Celtic  speech.  Even  in  the  parts  of  the  coun- 
try that  were  occupied  by  the  Caledonians,  the  Picts,  and  the  Bel- 
gian colonists,  the  oldest  topographical  2iames,  the  surest  evidence 
that  we  have  in  all  cases,  and  in  this  case  almost  our  only  evidence, 
are  all,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  Celtic,  either  of  the  C^nnric  or 
of  the  Gaelic  form.  And  then  there  are  the  o;reat  standino-  facts 
of  the  existence  to  this  day  of  a  large  Cymric  population  in  South 
Britain,  and  of  a  still  larger  Gaelic-speaking  popiilation  in  North 
Britain  and  in  Ireland.  No  other  accoiuit  of  these  Celtic  popula- 
tions, or  at  least  of  the  Welsli,  has  been  attempted  to  be  given, 
than  that,  as  their  own  traditions  and  records  are  unanimous  in 
asserting,  they  are  the  remnants  of  the  races  by  which  the  two 
islands  were  occupied  when  they  first  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
Romans  about  half  a  century  before  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era. 

And  l)oth  the  Welsh  and  the  Irish  possess  a  large  mass  of  litera- 
ture in  their  native  tongues,  much  of  which  has  been  printed,  in 


THE   CELTIC   LANGUAGES   AND   LITERATURES.  33 

great  part  no  doubt  of  comparatively  modem  production,  but  claim- 
ing some  of  it,  in  its  substance  if  not  exactly  in  the  very  form  in 
which  it  now  presents  itself,  an  antiquity  transcending  any  other 
native  literature  of  which  the  country  can  boast. 

Neither  the  Welsh  nor  the  Irish  language  and  literatiu-e,  how- 
ever, can  with  any  propriety  be  included  in  a  history  of  English 
literature  and  of  the  English  language.  The  relationship  of  Eng- 
lish to  anv  Celtic  tongue  is  more  remote  than  its  relationship  not 
only  to  German  or  Icelandic  or  French  or  Italian  or  Latin,  but 
even  to  Russian  or  Polish,  or  to  Persian  or  Sanscrit.  Irish  and 
Welsh  are  op])osed  in  their  entire  genius  and  structure  to  English. 
It  has  indeed  been  sometimes  asserted  that  the  Welsh  is  one  of  the 
fountains  of  the  English.  One  school  of  last-century  philologists 
maintained  that  fixll  a  third  of  our  existino;  Eno;lish  was  Welsh.  No 
doubt,  in  the  course  of  the  fourteen  centuries  that  the  two  languages 
have  been  spoken  alongside  of  each  other  in  the  same  country,  a 
considerable  number  of  vocables  can  hardly  fail  to  have  been  bor- 
rowed by  each  from  the  other ;  the  same  thing  would  have  hap- 
pened if  it  had  been  a  dialect  of  Chinese  that  had  maintained  itself 
all  that  time  among  the- Welsh  mountains.  If,  too,  as  is  probable, 
a  portion  of  the  previous  Celtic  population  chose  or  were  suffered 
to  remain  even  upon  that  part  of  the  soil  which  came  to  be  gener- 
ally occupied  after  the  departure  of  the  Romans  by  the  Angles, 
Saxons,  and  other  Teutonic  or  Gothic  tribes,  the  importers  of  the 
English  lan2;uao;e  and  founders  of  the  Eno-lish  nation,  something  of 
Celtic  may  in  that  Avay  have  intermingled  and  grown  up  with  the 
new  national  speech.  But  the  English  language  cannot  therefore 
be  regarded  as  of  Celtic  parentage.  The  Celtic  words,  or  words 
of  Celtic  extraction,  that  are  found  in  it,  be  they  some  hundreds  in 
number,  or  be  they  one  or  two  thousands,  are  still  only  something 
foreign.  They  are  products  of  another  seed  that  have  shot  up  here 
and  there  with  the  proper  crop  from  the  imperfectly  cleared  soil ; 
or  they  are  fragments  of  another  mass  which  have  chanced  to  come 
in  contact  with  the  body  of  the  language,  pressed  upon  by  its 
weight,  or  blown  upon  it  by  the  wind,  and  so  have  adhered  to  it  or 
become  imbedded  in  it.  It  would  perhaps  be  going  farther  than 
known  facts  warrant  us  if  we  were  to  say  that  a  Gothic  tongue  and 
a  Celtic  tongue  are  incapable  of  a  true  amalgamation.  But  undoubt- 
edly it  would  require  no  common  pressure  to  overcome  so  strong 
an  opposition  of  nature  and  genius.     The  Gothic  tongues,  and  the 

VOL.   I.  6 


34  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Latin  or  Romance  tongues  also,  indeed,  belong  to  distinct  branches 
of  what  is  called  the  Indo-European  family ;  but  the  Celtic  branch, 
though  admitted  to  be  of  the  same  tree,  has  much  more  of  a  char- 
acter of  its  o"s^Ti  than  any  of  the  others.  Probably  any  other  two 
languages  of  the  entire  multitude  held  to  be  of  this  general  stock 
would  unite  more  readily  than  two  of  which  only  one  was  Celtic. 
It  would  be  nearly  the  same  case  with  that  of  the  intermixture  of 
an  Indo-European  with  a  Semitic  language.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  Celtic  branch  must  in  all  probability  have  diverged  from 
the  common  stem  at  a  much  earlier  date  than  any  of  the  others. 
At  any  rate,  in  point  of  fact  the  English  can  at  most  be  said  to 
have  been  powdered  or  sprinkled  with  a  little  Celtic.  Whatever 
ma}'^  be  the  number  of  words  which  it  has  adopted,  whether  from 
the  ancient  Britons  or  from  their  descendants  the  Welsh,  they  are 
only  single  scattered  words.  No  considerable  department  of  the 
English  dictionary  is  Welsh.  No  stream  of  words  has  flowed  into 
the  lano:nao:e  from  that  source.  The  two  lanouao-es  have  in  no 
sense  met  and  become  one.  They  have  not  mingled  as  two  rivers 
do  when  they  join  and  fill  into  the  same  channel.  There  has  been 
no  chemical  combination  between  the  Gothic  and  the  Celtic  ele- 
ments, but  only  more  or  less  of  a  mechanical  intermixture. 

We  shall  limit  ourselves  to  the  briefest  notice  of  the  remains  of 
the  ancient  vernacular  literature  of  Ireland  and  of  Wales.  The 
earliest  literature  of  which  any  remains  still  exist  in  any  of  the 
native  languages  of  the  British  Islands  must  be  held  to  be  the 
Irish.  The  Ii-ish  Avere  probably  possessed  of  the  knowledge  of 
letters  from  a  very  remote  antiquity.  Although  the  forais  of  their 
present  alphabetical  characters  are  Roman,  and  are  supposed  to 
have  been  inti'oduced  by  St.  Patrick  in  the  fifth  century,  it  is  very 
remarkable  that  the  alphabet,  in  the  number  and  powers  of  its  ele- 
ments, exactly  corresponds  with  that  which  Cadmus  is  recorded  to 
have  brought  to  Greece  from  Ph«nicia.  If  we  may  believe  the 
national  traditions,  and  the  most  ancient  existing  chronicles,  the 
Irish  also  possessed  a  succession  of  bards  from  their  first  settlement 
in  the  country,  and  the  names  of  some  of  those  that  are  said  to 
have  flourished  so  early  as  in  the  first  century  of  our  era  are  still 
remembered  ;  but  the  oldest  bardic  compositions  that  have  been 
^reserved  claim  to  be  of  the  fifth  century.  Some  fragments  of 
metrical  productions  to  Avhich  this  date  is  attributed  are  found  in 
the  old  annalists,  and  more  abundant  specimens  occur  in  the  same 


THE   CELTIC   LANGUAGES   AND   LITERATURES.  35 

records  under  each  of  the  succeeding  centimes.  The  oldest  exist- 
\ng  Irish  manuscript,  however,  is  beheved  to  be  the  Psalter  of 
Cas.hel,  a  collection  of  bardic  legends,  compiled  about  the  end  of 
the  ninth  century,  by  Cormac  MacCulinan,  bishop  of  Cashel  and 
king;  of  Munster.  But  the  most  valuable  remains  of  ancient  Irish 
literature  that  have  come  down  to  us  are  the  various  historical 
records  in  prose,  called  the  Annals  of  Tigernach,  of  the  Four  Mas- 
ters, of  Ulster,  and  others.  Portions  of  these  were  first  published 
in  the  original,  accompanied  with  Latin  translations,  in  Dr. 
O'Conor's  Rerum  Hibernicarum  Scriptores  Veteres,  4  vols.  4to., 
Buckingham,  1814-1826  ;  a  splendid  monument  of  the  munificence 
of  his  Grace  the  late  Duke  of  Buckingham,  at  whose  expense  the 
work  was  prepared  and  printed,  and  fi-om  the  treasures  of  whose 
library  its  contents  were  principally  derived.  Tigernach,  the  oldest 
of  these  Irish  annalists,  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury ;  but  both  his  and  the  other  annals  profess,  and  are  believed, 
to  have  been  compiled  from  authentic  records  of  much  greater 
antiquity.  They  form  undoubtedly  a  collection  of  materials  in  the 
liigliest  degree  precious  for  the  information  they  supply  with  regard 
to  the  history  both  of  Ireland  and  of  the  various  early  British  king- 
doms. These  Annals  differ  Avholly  in  character  from  the  metrical 
legends  of  Irish  history  found  in  the  Book  of  Cashel  and  in  the 
other  later  compositions  of  the  bards.  They  consist  of  accounts  of 
events  related  for  the  most  part  both  with  sobriety  and  precision, 
and  with  the  careful  notation  of  dates  that  might  be  expected  from 
a  contemporary  and  official  recorder.  They  are  in  all  probability, 
indeed,  copies  of,  or  compilations  from,  public  records.  A  much 
more  satisfiictoiy  edition  in  all  respects  of  the  Annals  of  the  Four 
Masters,  which  were  compiled  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  of 
which  only  the  portion  ending  with  the  year  1171  is  in  Dr. 
O'Conor's  work,  has  since  been  produced  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Irish  Archaeological  Society,  by  Dr.  O'Donovan,  Professor  of 
the  Celtic  Languages  in  Queen's  College,  Belfast.  This  edition 
(which  was  originally  brought  out  in  5  vols.  4to.  in  1848-51,  and 
re])rinted  in  7  vols.  4to.  in  1856)  contains  the  Annals  from  their 
commencement  at  the  Creation  down  to  their  termination  in  a.  d. 
1616,  and,  besides,  a  translation  of  the  whole  in  English  presents 
a  mass  of  learned  annotation,  making  it  almost  a  cyclopgedia  both 
of  Irish  history  and  of  Irish  topography.^      To  the  Archieological 

1  There  is  also  an  English  translation  of  tlie  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  hy 
Owen  Connellan,  Esq.,  in  one  volume,  4to.,  1846. 


B6  EXGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGK 

Society,  founded  in  1840,  and  now  imited  with  the  Cehic  Society, 
we  owe  also  many  other  important  puhhcations.  And  on  one 
whicli  will  be  perhaps  the  most  important  of  all  that  have  yet 
appeared  in  illustration  of  the  ancient  civilization  of  the  country, 
and  to  a  considerable  extent  too  of  the  earlier  forms  of  the  lan- 
guage, that  of  the  remains  of  what  are  called  the  Brehon  LaAvs, 
Dr.  O'Donovan  is  understood  to  have  been  for  some  years  en- 
gao-ed. 

Not  of  such  historic  importance,  but  perhaps  still  more  curious 
and  interesting  in  other  points  of  view,  are  the  remains  we  still 
possess  of  the  early  Welsh  literature.  The  Welsh  have  no  national 
annals  to  be  compared  in  value  with  those  of  the  Irish  ;  but  some 
of  their  Chronicles,  fabidous  as  they  evidently  are  in  great  part, 
are  undoubtedly  of  considerable  antiquity.  It  is  now  almost  uni- 
versally admitted  that  the  famous  Latin  Chronicle  of  the  Britons, 
published  by  Geoffrey  of  INIonmouth  in  the  twelfth  century,  is 
really  what  it  professes  to  be,  at  least  in  the  main,  a  translation 
from  a  much  older  Welsh  original.  The  Laws  of  Howel  Dha, 
who  reigned  in  South  Wales  in  the  early  part  of  the  tenth  century, 
have  been  printed  with  a  Latin  translation,  by  Wotton,  in  his 
Leges  Wallicffi,  fol.  1730  ;  and  again  in  the  late  Record  Commis- 
sion edition  of  the  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales,  by 
Anewrin  Owen,  Esq.,  fol.  1841.  They  develop  a  state  of  society 
in  which  many  primitive  features  are  strangely  mixed  up  with  a 
general  aspect  of  considerable  civilization,  and  all.  the  order  of  a 
well-established  political  system.  Then  there  ai'e  the  singrdar  com- 
positions called  the  Triads,  which  are  enumerations  of  events  or 
other  particulars,  bound  together  in  knots  of  three,  by  means  of 
some  title  or  general  observation,  —  sometimes,  it  must  be  confessed, 
foi'ced  and  far-fetched  enough,  —  under  which  it  is  conceived  that 
they  may  all  be  included.  Of  the  Ti'iads,  some  are  moral,  and 
others  historical.  The  historical  are  certainly  not  all  ancient ;  for 
they  contain  allusions  to  events  that  took  ])lace  in  the  reign  of  oiu' 
Edward  I. ;  but  it  appears  most  ])rol)al)le  that  the  form  of  composi- 
tion which  they  exemplify  was  long  in  use  ;  and,  if  so,  the  com- 
paratively modern  character  of  some  of  them  does  not  disjirove  the 
antiquity  of  others.  A  late  writer,  who  considers  them  to  be  a  com- 
pilation of  the  thirteenth  century,  admits  that  they  "reflect,  'n  a 
:5mall  and  moderately  faithful  mirror,  various  passages  of  Bardic 
comjKjsition  which  are  lost."  ^  Then  there  is  the  collection  of 
^  The  Hon.  Algernon  Herbert,  in  Britannia  after  tlie  Romans,  p.  xiv. 


THE   CELTIC   LANGUAGES   AND   LITERATURES.  37 

romantic  prose  tales  known  as  the  Mubinogion,  preserved  in  a  MS. 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  which  has  now  been  pubhshed,  with  an 
EngHsh  translation  and  notes,  by  Lady  Charlotte  Guest,  in  three 
sumptuous  volumes,  8 vo.,  London,  1838-1850,  —  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  feats  of  the  female  authorship  of  our  day.  The  most 
voluminous  of  the  ancient  Welsh  remains,  however,  are  the  poems 
of  the  Bards.  The  authenticity  of  these  compositions  had  till  re- 
cently been  regarded  as  having  been  established,  beyond  dispute, 
l)y  various  investigators,  and  especially  by  Mr.  Sharon  Turner's 
elaborate  Vindication.^  But  now  again  the  judgment  of  the  most 
advanced  Celtic  scholarship  seems  to  be  tending  the  other  way.^ 
The  poems  professing  to  be  the  most  ancient  are  those  ascribed  to 
the  four  bards,  Aneurin,  Taliesin,  Llywarch  Hen,  and  Merdhin,  or 
Merlin,  the  Caledonian,  who  all  appear  to  have  belonged  to  the 
sixth  century.  A  few  additional  pieces  have  also  been  preserved 
of  the  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  centuries,  which 
are  printed  along  with  these  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Myvyrian 
Archaiology  of  Wales,  3  vols.  8vo.,  Lond.  1801.  Much  of  this 
early  Welsh  poetry  is  in  a  strangely  mystical  style  ;  its  general 
spmt  being,  according  to  one  theory,  much  more  Druidical  than 
Christian.  The  author  of  Britannia  after  the  Romans  has  en- 
deavored to  show  that  a  partial  revival  of  Druidism  was  effected  in 
Wales  in  the  sixth  century,  principally  through  the  efforts  of  the 
Bards,  whose  order  had  formerly  composed  so  distinguished  a 
part  of  the  Druidical  system ;  and  much  in  the  character  of  this 
ancient  poetry  would  seem  to  favor  that  supposition,  which  does 
not,  however,  rest  upon  this  evidence  alone.  No  existing 
manuscript  of  these  poems,-  we  may  observe,  nor  any  other 
Welsh  manuscript  appears  to  be  much  older  than  the  twelfth 
century. 

As  the  forms  of  the  original  English  alphabetical  characters  are 
the  same  with  those  of  the  Irish,  it  is  probable  that  it  was  from 
Ireland  the  English  derived  their  first  knowdedge  of  letters.     There 

1  First  published  separately  in  1803,  and  since,  much  enlarged,  at  the  end  of  the 
third  and  subsequent  editions  of  his  History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.  See  also  the 
Rev  E.  Davies's  Celtic  Researches,  Mr.  Probert's  Preface  to  his  edition  of  Aneurin, 
and  Mr.  Herbert's  Britannia  after  the  Romans,  pp.  i-vi. 

'^  See  an  important  work  entitled  TaUesin  ;  or,  the  Bards  and  Druids  of  Britain. 
A  translation  of  the  Remains  of  the  earliest  Welsh  Bards,  and  an  Examination  of 
.he  Bardic  Mysteries.  By  D.  W.  Nash,  Member  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Litera- 
aire.     8vo.,  London,  1858. 


38  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

was  certainly,  however,  very  little  literatui'e  in  the  country  before 
the  arrival  of  Augustine,  in  the  end  of  the  sixth  century.  Augus- 
tine is  supposed  to  have  estabhshed  scliools  at  Canterbury  ;  and, 
about  a  quarter  of  a  century  afterwards,  Sigebert,  king  of  the  East 
Angles,  who  had  spent  part  of  his  early  life  in  France,  is  stated  by 
Bede  to  have,  upon  liis  coming  to  the  throne,  founded  an  institu- 
tion for  the  instruction  of  the  youth  of  his  dominions  similar  to 
those  he  had  seen  abroad.  The  schools  planted  by  Augustine  at 
Canterbury  were  afterwards  greatly  extended  and  improved  by 
his  successor.  Archbishop  Theodore,  who  obtained  the  see  in  668. 
Theodore  and  his  learned  friend  Adrian,  Bede  informs  us,  delivered 
instructions  to  crowds  of  pupils,  not  only  in  divinity,  but  also  in 
astronomy,  medicine,  arithmetic,  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  lan- 
guages. Bede  states  that  some  of  the  scholars  of  these  accom- 
plished foreigners  were  alive  in  his  time,  to  whom  the  Greek  and 
Latin  were  as  familiar  as  their  mother  tongue.  Schools  now  began 
to  multiply  in  other  parts,  and  were  generally  to  be  found  in  all  the 
monasteries  and  at  the  bishops'  seats.  Of  these  episcopal  and 
monastic  schools,  that  founded  by  Bishop  Benedict  in  his  abbey  at 
Wearmouth,  where  Bede  was  educated,  and  that  Avhich  Archbishop 
Eo-bert  established  at  York,  were  amono-  the  most  famous.  But 
others  of  great  reputation  at  a  somewhat  later  date  were  super- 
intended by  learned  teachers  from  Ireland.  One  was  that  of 
Maildulf  at  Malmesbury.  At  Glastonbury,  also,  it  is  related  in 
one  of  the  ancient  lives  of  St,  Dunstan,  some  Irish  ecclesiastics  had 
settled,  the  books  belonging  to  whom  Dunstan  is  recorded  to  have 
diligently  studied.  The  northern  parts  of  the  kingdom,  moren 
over,  were  indebted  for  the  first  light  of  learning  as  well  as  of 
religion  to  the  missionaries  from  lona,  which  Avas  an  Irish  founda- 
Uon. 

For  some  asres  Ireland  was  the  chief  seat  of  learnino;  in  Chris- 
tian  Eui'ope  ;  and  the  most  distinguished  scholars  who  appeared  in 
other  countries  were  mostly  either  Irish  by  birth  or  had  received 
their  education  in  Irish  schools.  We  are  informed  by  Bede  that 
in  his  day,  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighth  century,  it  was  customaiy 
for  his  English  felloAv-countrymen  of  all  ranks,  from  the  highest  to 
tlie  lowest,  to  retire  for  study  and  devotion  to  Ireland,  where,  he 
adds,  they  were  all  hospitably  received,  and  supplied  gi*atuitously 
\'  ith  food,  witli  books,  and  with  instruction.^  The  glory  of  this 
1  Hist.  Eccles.  iii.  28. 


THE   CELTIC   LANGUAGES   AND   LITERATURES.  39 

age  of  Irish  scholarship  and  genius  is  the  celebrated  Joannes 
Scotus,  or  Erigena,  as  he  is  as  frequently  designated,  —  either 
appellative  equally  proclaiming  his  time  birth-place.  He  is  sup- 
posed to  have  first  made  his  appearance  in  France  about  the  year 
845,  and  to  have  remained  in  that  country  till  his  death,  which 
appears  to  have  taken  place  before  875.  Erigena  is  the  'author 
of  a  translation  fi'om  the  Greek  of  certain  mystical  works  ascribed 
to  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  which  he  executed  at  the  com- 
mand of  his  patron,  the  French  king,  Charles  the  Bald  ;  and  also 
of  several  original  treatises  on  metaphysics  and  theology.  His 
productions  may  be  taken  as  furnishing  clear  and  conclusive  evi- 
dence that  the  Greek  language  was  taught  at  this  time  in  the  Irish 
schools.  Mr.  Tiu'ner  has  given  a  short  account  of  his  principal 
work,  his  Dialogue  De  Divisione  Natura3  (On  the  Division  of  Na- 
ture), which  he  characterizes  as  "  distinguished  for  its  Aristotehan 
acuteness  and  extensive  information."  In  one  place  "  he  takes 
occasion,"  it  is  observed,  "  to  give  concise  and  able  definitions  of 
the  seven  liberal  arts,  and  to  express  his  opinion  on  the  composition 
of  things.  In  another  part  he  inserts  a  very  elaborate  discussion 
on  arithmetic,  which  he  says  he  had  learnt  from  his  infancy.  He 
also  details  a  curious  conversation  on  the  elements  of  things,  on 
the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  other  topics  of  astronomy 
and  physiology.  Among  these  he  even  gives  the  means  of  calcu- 
lating the  diameters  of  the  Imiar  and  solar  circles.  Besides  the 
fathers  Austin,  the  two  Gregories,  Chrysostom,  Basil,  Epiphanius, 
Origen,  Jerome,  and  Ambrosius,  of  whose  works,  with  the  Plato- 
nizing  Dionysius  and  Maximus,  he  gives  large  extracts,  he  also 
quotes  Virgil,  Cicero,  Aristotle,  Pliny,  Plato,  and  Boethius  ;  he 
details  the  opinions  of  Eratosthenes  and  of  Pythagoras  on  some 
astronomical  topics  ;  he  also  cites  Martianus  Capella.  His  knowl- 
edge of  Greek  appears  almost  in  every  page."  ^  The  subtle 
speculations  of  Erigena  have  strongly  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
most  eminent  among  the  modern  inquirers  into  the  history  of 
opinion  and  of  civilization  ;  and  the  German  Tenneman  agrees 
with  the  French  Cousin  and  Guizot  in  attributing  to  them  a  very 
extraordinary  influence  on  the  philosophy  of  his  oAvn  and  of  suc- 
ceeding times.  To  his  writings  and  translations,  it  is  thought,  may 
be  traced  the  introduction  into  the  theology  and  metaphysics  of 
Europe  of  the  later  Platonism  of  the  Alexandrian  school.  It  is 
1  Turner,  Anglo-Sax.  iii.  893. 


40  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

remarkable,  as  Mr.  INloore  has  observed,  that  the  learned  Mosheim 
had  previously  shown  the  study  of  the  scholastic  or  Aristotehan 
philosophy  to  have  been  also  of  Irish  origin.  "  That  the  Hiber- 
nians," says  that  writer,  "  who  were  called  Scots  in  this  [the 
eighth]  centmy,  were  lovers  of  learning,. and  distinguished  them- 
selves in  these  times  of  ignorance  by  the  culture  of  the  sciences 
beyond  all  the  other  European  nations,  travelling  through  the  most 
distant  lands,  both  with  a  view  to  improve  and  to  communicate 
their  knowledge,  is  a  fact  with  which  I  have  been  long  acquainted  j 
as  we  see  them  in  the  most  authentic  records  of  antiquity  dis- 
charging, with  the  liighest  reputation  and  applause,  the  function  of 
doctor  in  France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  both  dvu'ing  this  and  the 
following  century.  But  that  these  Hibernians  were  the  first  teach- 
ers of  the  scholastic  theology  in  Europe,  and  so  early  as  the  eighth 
century  illustrated  the  doctrines  of  religion  by  the  principles  of 
philosophy,  I  learned  but  lately."  ^  And  then  he  adduces  the 
proofs  that  establish  his  position. 

Amoug  the  earlier  productions  of  Irish  scholarship  may  espe- 
cially be  mentioned  the  two  Latin  lives  of  Columba,  the  founder 
of  the  monastery  of  lona,  and  its  abbot  from  563  till  his  death  in 
597  ;  the  first  by  Cuminius,  who  succeeded  as  abbot  of  lona  in 
657  ;  the  second,  Avhich  is  of  much  greater  lengtli,  by  Adamnan, 
who  succeeded  to  the  same  office  in  679.  Both  these  productions, 
the  second  of  which  in  particular  is  highly  curious,  have  been  re- 
peatedly printed.^ 

1  Translated  in  IMoore's  Ireland,  i.  302. 

2  The  late  edition  of  Adaninan's  Life  of  St.  Columba  (in  whieh  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  other  by  Cuminius  is  incorporated),  prepared  for  the  Irish  Arclijeological  and 
Celtic  Society  by  Dr.  Reeves,  4to  ,  Dublin,  1857,  while  its  typography,  and  the  maps 
and  other  plans  by  which  it  is  adorned,  make  it  one  of  the  handsomest  productions 
of  the  modern  press,  is  illustrated,  in  an  abundant  apparatus  of  notes  and  explana- 
tory matter  of  all  kinds,  with  an  extent  of  research  and  copiousness  of  learning 
which  place  it  on  a  level  with  whatever  has  been  recently  done  best  among  us  in 
this  department  of  scholarship,  if,  indeed,  any  other  work  has  appeared  for  many 
years  on  the  subject  of  the  early  ecclesiastical  history  of  these  islands  that  deserves 
to  be  compared  with  this  admirable  edition  of  a  most  curious  account  of  the  great 
Seottisii  missionary  of  tiie  sixtli  century,  compiled  by  a  writer  of  the  seventh,  and 
preserved  to  our  day  in  a  manuscript  of  the  eighth. 


DECAY  OF  tup:  EARLIEST  ENGLISH  SCHOLARSHIP. 

It  should  seem  not  to  be  altogether  correct  to  attribute  the 
decline  and  extinction  of  the  earliest  literary  civilization  of  the 
Angles  and  Saxons  wholly  to  the  Danish  invasions.  The  North- 
men did  not  make  their  appearance  till  towards  the  close  of  the 
eighth  centviry,  nor  did  their  ravages  occasion  any  considerable 
public  alarm  till  long  after  the  commencement  of  the  ninth  ;  but 
for  a  whole  century  preceding  this  date,  learning  in  England  ap- 
pears to  have  been  falling  into  decay.  Bede,  who  died  in  735, 
exactly  ninety-seven  years  before  that  landing  of  the  Danes  in  the 
Isle  of  Sheppey,  in  the  reign  of  Egbert,  which  was  followed  by 
incessant  attacks  of  a  similar  kind,  until  the  fierce  marauders  at 
jast  won  for  themselves  a  settlement  in  the  country,  is  the  last 
name  eminent  for  scholarship  that  occurs  in  this  portion  of  the 
English  annals.  The  historian  William  of  JNIalmesbury,  indeed, 
affirms  that  the  death  of  Bede  was  fatal  to  learning  in  England, 
and  especially  to  history  ;  "  insomuch  that  it  may  be  said,"  he 
adds,  writing  in  the  early  part  of  the  twelfth  century,  "  that  almost 
all  knowledge  of  past  events  was  buried  in  the  same  grave  with 
him,  and  hath  continued  in  that  condition  even  to  our  times." 
"  There  was  not  so  much  as  one  Englishman,"  Malmesbury  de- 
clares, "  left  behind  Bede,  who  emulated  the  glory  which  he  had 
acquired  by  his  studies,  imitated  his  example,  or  pursued  the  path 
to  knowledge  which  he  had  pointed  out.  A  few,  indeed,  of  his 
successors  were  good  men,  and  not  unlearned,  but  they  generally 
spent  their  lives  in  an  inglorious  silence  ;  while  the  far  greater 
number  sunk  into  sloth  and  ignorance,  until  by  degrees  the  love 
of  learning  was  quite  extingu^ished  in  this  island  for  a  long  time." 

The  devastations  of  the  Danes  completed  what  had  probably 
been  begun  by  the  dissensions  and  confusion  that  attended  the 
breaking  up  of  the  original  political  system  established  by  the 
Angles  and  Saxons,  and  perhaps  also  by  the  natural  decay  of  the 
national  spirit  among  a  race  long  habituated  to  a  stirring  and  ad- 
venturous life,  and  now  left  in  undisturbed  ease  and  quiet  be- 
fore the  spirit  of  a  new  and  more  intellectual  activity  had  been 
sufficiently  diffiised  among  them.  Nearly  all  the  monasteries 
and  the  schools  connected  with  them  throughout  the  land  were 
•either  actually  laid  in  ashes   by  the   northern   invaders,  or  were 

VOL.  I.  6 


42  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

deserted  in  the  general  terror  and  distraction  occasioned  by  their 
attacks.  When  Alfred  was  a  young  man,  about  the  middle  of  the 
ninth  century,  he  could  find  no  masters  to  instruct  him  in  any  of 
the  higher  branches  of  learning  :  there  were  at  that  time,  accord- 
ing to  his  biographer  Asser,^  few  or  none  among  the  West  Saxons 

1  The  Life  of  King  Alfred,  professing  to  have  been  written  by  liis  contemporary 
and  friend  Asser,  bishop  of  Sherborn,  afterwards  SaHsbury,  one  of  the  two  sees 
(Winchester  being  the  other)  into  wliich  the  original  bishopric  of  Wessex  was 
divided  in  the  beginning  of  the  eiglith  century,  is  in  Latin,  and  was  first  printed, 
in  folio,  at  London  in  1574,  along  with  Alfred's  Preface  to  his  translation  of  Pojie 
Gregory's  Pastorale,  at  the  end  of  Archbishop  Parker's  edition  of  the  English  and 
Norman  Histories  of  Thomas  \Yalsingham.  This  first  edition  of  Asser  is  remark- 
able as  exhibiting  the  Latin  text  in  what  are  called  Saxon  characters.  The  second 
edition  is  in  Camden's  collection  (Anglica,  Normannica,  &c.),  fol.  Frankfort,  1602; 
the  third  in  Gale's  Scriptores  Quindecini,  fol.  Oxford,  1691.  It  was  first  published 
separately  by  Francis  Wise,  in  8vo.,  at  Oxford,  in  1722.  And  a  fifth  edition,  being 
the  latest,  is  given  in  the  Monumenta  Historica  Britannica,  1848.  Meanwhile  Mr. 
Thomas  Wright,  having  previously  intimated  his  suspicions  in  a  comnnniication  to 
the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  published  in  their  Transactions,  had,  in  1842,  in  the  first 
volume  of  his  Biographia  Britannica  Literaria,  pp.  408-412,  stated  in  full  certain 
reasons  which  led  him  to  believe  that  tiiis  Life  of  King  Alfred  could  not  have  been 
written  before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,  and  that  "it  was  probably  the  work  of 
a  monk  who,  witli  no  great  knowledge  of  history,  collected  some  of  the  numerous 
traditions  relating  to  King  Alfred  which  were  then  current,  and  joined  them  with 
the  legends  in  the  life  of  St.  Neot  and  the  historical  entries  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle ; 
and,  to  give  authenticity  to  his  work,  published  it  under  the  name  of  Asser."  Mr. 
Wright,  however,  does  not  put  forward  his  objections  as  depriving  the  biography 
of  all  historical  value ;  "  it  contains,"  he  admits,  "  interesting  traditions  relating  to 
Alfred's  life  and  character,  many  of  which  were  without  doubt  true  in  substance." 
And,  since  Mr.  Wright's  work  appeared,  the  authenticity  of  the  biography  has 
been  maintained  by  the  late  Dr.  Lingard,  in  an  elaborate  investigation  inserted  in 
the  second  edition  of  his  History  and  Antiquities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church,  1845, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  424-428.  Tiie  reader  may  furtiier  be  referred  to  what  is  said  on  this 
subject  by  Mr.  Hardy  in  his  Preface  to  the  Monumenta  Historica  Britannica,  pp. 
77-81 ;  and  by  Dr.  Pauli  in  the  Introduction  to  his  Life  of  Alfred  the  Great  (Eng- 
lish translation  by  Thorpe),  1853,  pp.  3-11.  Mr.  Hardy  holds  that  the  inconsis- 
tencies which  are  to  be  found  in  Asser's  narrative  as  we  now  have  it  are  explained 
by  the  fact  "  that  many  passages  of  the  printed  text  formed  no  part  of  Asser'a 
work,  but  were  the  insertions  of  Archbishop  Parker,"  from  a  spurious  work  which 
he  found  bound  up  with  the  MS.,  still  in  the  library  of  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Cambridge,  from  which  he  printed  his  edition.  Dr.  Pauli,  after  referring  to  the 
continued  confidence'  of  the  best  English  and  German  writers,  such  as  Lai)penberg, 
Pertz,  and  Kemble,  in  the  general  authenticity  of  the  work,  adds  that  he  cannot 
Limself  altogether  avoid  considering  it  in  the  same  light ;  and,  having  pointed  out 
Tarious  passages  which  may  be  suspected,  he  concludes  by  stating  that  he  will, 
nevertheless,  frequently  refer  to  it  in  the  course  of  his  own  narrative  ;  and,  in  fact. 
It  is  one  of  his  leading  authorities.  "Lingard,"  he  ob.serves,  "brings  forward  good 
reasons  for  ditfc'ring  with  Wright."  Dr.  Giles  has  given  an  English  translation  of 
Asser  in  his  Six  Old  English  Chronicles,  1848. 

Along  with  Asser's  work  may  be  noticed  the  chronicle  of  Ethelwerd,  which  in  a 


DECAY  OF   THE  EARLIEST  ENGLISH   SCHOLARSHIP.       43 

who  had  any  scholarship,  or  could  so  much  as  read  with  propriety 
and  ease.  The  reading  of  the  Latin  language  is  probably  what  is 
here  alluded  to.  Alfred  has  himself  stated,  in  the  preface  to  his 
translation  of  Gregory's  Pastorale,  that,  though  many  of  the  Eng- 
hsh  at  his  accession  could  read  their  native  language  well  enough, 
the  knowledge  of  the  Latin  tongue  was  so  much  decayed,  that 
there  were  very  few  to  the  south  of  the  Humber  who  understood 
the  common  prayers  of  the  church,  or  were  capable  of  translating 
a  sino;le  sentence  of  Latin  into  Euii-lish  ;  and  to  the  south  of  the 
Thames  he  could  not  recollect  that  there  was  one  possessed  of  this 
very  moderate  amount  of  learning.  Contrasting  this  lamentable 
state  of  things  with  the  better  days  that  had  gone  before,  he  ex- 
claims, "  I  wish  thee  to  know  that  it  comes  very  often  into  my 
mind,  what  wise  men  there  were  in  England,  both  laymen  and 
ecclesiastics,  and  how  happy  those  times  were  to  England !  The 
sacred  profession  was  diligent  both  to  teach  and  to  learn.  Men 
from  abroad  sought  wisdom  and  learning  in  this  country,  though 
we  must  now  go  out  of  it  to  obtain  knowledge,  if  we  should  wish 
to  have  it." 

It  was  not  till  he  was  nearly  forty  years  of  age  that  Alfred  him- 
self commenced  his  study  of  the  Latin  language.  Before  this, 
however,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  rescued  his  dominions  from  the 
hands  of  the  Danes,  and  reduced  these  foreign  disturbers  to  sub- 
jection, he  had  exerted  himself  with  his  characteristic  activity 
in  bringing  about  the  restoration  of  letters  as  well  as  of  peace 
and  order.  He  had  invited  to  his  court  all  the  most  learned  men 
he  coidd  discover  anywhere  in  his  native  land,  and  had  even 
brought  over  instructors  for  himself  and  his  people  from  other 
countries.  Werfrith,  the  bishop  of  Worcester ;  Ethelstan  and 
Werwulf,  two  Mercian  priests  ;  and  Plegmund,  also  a  Mercian, 
who  afterwards  became  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  were  some  of 
the  English  of  whose  superior  acquirements  he  thus  took  advan- 

few  pages  of  affected,  and,  in  some  places,  nearly  or  altogether  unintelligible,  Latin, 
gives  a  summary  of  the  course  of  human  affairs  from  the  creation  to  the  year  975.' 
Ethelwerd  —  or,  as  he  styles  himself,  Patricius  Consul  Fabius  Quaestor  Ethel- 
werdus  —  appears  from  his  Prologue,  or  dedication,  to  have  been  a  member  of  the 
■X)yal  family,  a  descendant  of  King  Alfred.  His  work  is  little  more  than  a  dry  ab- 
stract from  the  national  Chronicle.  It  is  contained  in  Savile's  Collection,  1596,  ani 
also  in  the  Monumenta  Historica  Britannica.  There  is  an  English  translation  of 
•t  in  Dr.  Giles's  Six  Old  English  Chronicles,  Bohn,  1848,  and  another  by  Mr.  Ste- 
venson in  vol.  ii.  part  2d  of  the  Church  Historians  of  England,  1854.^ 


44  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

tage.  Asser  he  brought  from  the  western  extremity  of  Wales. 
Grimbald  he  obtained  from  France,  having  sent  an  embassy  of 
bishops,  presbyters,  deacons,  and  rehgious  laymen,  bearing  val- 
uable presents  to  his  ecclesiastial  superior  Fulco,  the  archbishop 
of  Rlieims,  to  ask  permission  for  the  great  scholar  to  be  allowed 
to  come  to  reside  in  England.  And  so  in  other  instances,  like 
the  bee,  looking  everywhere  for  honey,  to  quote  the  simili- 
tude of  his  biographer,  this  admirable  prince  sought  abroad  in 
all  directions  for  the  treasure  Avhich  his  own  kingdom  did  not 
aflPord. 

His  labors  in  translating  the  various  works  that  have  been  men- 
tioned above  from  the  Latin,  after  he  had  acquired  that  language, 
he  seems  himself  to  have  been  half  inclined  to  regard  as  to  be 
justified  only  by  the  low  state  into  Avhich  all  learning  had  fallen 
among  his  countrymen  in  his  time,  and  as  likely  perhaps  to  be 
rather  of  disservice  than  otherwise  to  the  cause  of  real  scholar- 
ship. Reflecting  on  the  erudition  wliich  had  existed  in  the  coun- 
try at  a  former  period,  and  which  had  made  those  volumes  in  the 
learned  languages  useful  that  now  lay  u^iopened,  "  I  wondered 
greatly,"  he  says  in  the  Preface  to  his  translation  of  the  Pastorale, 
"  that  of  those  good  wise  men  who  were  formerly  in  our  nation, 
and  who  had  all  learned  fully  these  books,  none  would  translate 
any  part  into  their  own  language  ;  but  I  soon  answered  myself, 
and  said,  they  never  thought  that  men  could  be  so  reckless,  and 
that  learning  would  be  so  fallen.  They  intentionally  omitted  it, 
and  wished  that  there  should  be  more  wisdom  in  the  land,  by 
many  languages  being  known."  He  then  called  to  recollection, 
however,  what  benefit  had  been  derived  by  all  nations  from  the 
translation  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  Scriptures,  first  into  Latin, 
and  then  into  the  various  modern  tongues  ;  and,  "  therefore,"  he 
concludes,  "  I  think  it  better,  if  you  think  so,  (he  is  addressing 
Wulfsig,  the  bishop  of  London,)  that  we  also  translate  some  books, 
the  most  necessary  for  all  men  to  know,  that  we  all  may  know 
them  ;  and  we  may  do  this,  with  God's  help,  very  easily,  if  we 
have  peace  ;  so  that  all  the  youth  that  are  now  in  England,  who 
are  freemen,  and  possess  sufficient  wealth,  may  for  a  time  apply  to 
no  other  task  till  they  first  well  know  hoAV  to  read  English.  Let 
those  learn  Latin  afterwards,  who  will  know  more,  and  advance 
to  a  higher  condition."  In  this  wise  and  benevolent  spirit  he 
acted.     The  old  writers  seem  to  state  that,  besides  the   transla- 


DECAY  OF   THE   EARLIEST  ENGLISH   SCHOLARSHIP.       45 

tions  that  have  come  down  to  us,  he  executed  many  others  that 
are  now  lost. 

It  is  probable,  though  there  is  no  sufficient  authority  for  the 
statement,  that  Alfred  reestablished  many  of  the  old  monastic  and 
episcopal  schools  in  the  various  parts  of  the  kingdom.  Asser  ex- 
pressly mentions  that  he  founded  a  seminary  for  the  sons  of  the 
nobility,  to  the  support  of  which  he  devoted  no  less  than  an  eighth 
part  of  his  whole  revenue.  Hither  even  some  noblemen  repaired 
who  had  far  outgrown  their  youth,  but  nevertheless  had  scarcely 
or  not  at  all  begun  their  acquaintance  with  books.  In  another 
place  Asser  speaks  of  this  school,  to  which  Alfred  is  stated  to  have 
sent  his  oavu  son  Ethelward,  as  being  attended  not  only  by  the  sons 
of  almost  all  the  nobility  of  the  realm,  but  also  by  many  of  the 
inferior  classes.  It  was  provided  with  several  masters.  A  notion 
that  has  been  eagerly  maintained  by  some  antiquaries  is,  that  this 
seminary,  instituted  by  Alfred,  is  to  be  considered  as  the  founda- 
tion of  the  University  of  Oxford. 

Up  to  this  time  absolute  illiteracy  seems  to  have  been  common 
even  among  the  highest  classes  of  the  English.  We  have  just 
seen  that,  when  Alfred  established  his  schools,  they  were  as  much 
needed  for  the  nobility  who  had  reached  an  advanced  or  mature 
age  as  for  their  children ;  and,  indeed,  the  scheme  of  instruction 
seems  to  have  been  intended  from  the  first  to  embrace  the  former 
as  well  as  the  latter,  for,  according  to  Asser's  account,  every  person 
of  rank  or  substance  who,  either  from  age  or  want  of  capacity,  was 
unable  to  learn  to  read  himself,  was  compelled  to  send  to  school 
either  his  son  or  a  kinsman,  or,  if  he  had  neither,  a  servant,  that 
he  might  at  least  be  read  to  by  some  one.  The  royal  charters, 
instead  of  the  names  of  the  kings,  sometimes  exhibit  their  marks, 
used,  as  it  is  frankly  explained,  in  consequence  of  their  ignorance 
of  letters. 

The  measures  begun  by  Alfred  for  effecting  the  literary  civiliza- 
tion of  his  subjects  were  probably  pursued  under  his  successors ; 
but  the  period  of  the  next  three  quarters  of  a  century,  notwith- 
standing some  short  intervals  of  repose,  was  on  the  whole  too 
troubled  to  admit  of  much  attention  being  given  to  the  carrying 
out  of  his  plans,  or  even,  it  may  be  apprehended,  the  maintenance 
of  what  he  had  set  up.  Dunstan,  indeed,  during  his  administra- 
tion, appears  to  have  exerted  himself  with  zeal  in  enforcing  a  higher 
•standard  of  learning  as  well  as  of  morals,  or  of  asceticism,  among 


16  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  clergy.  But  the  renewal  of  the  Danish  wars,  after  the  acces- 
sion of  Ethelred,  and  the  state  of  misery  and  confusion  in  which 
the  country  ^vas  kept  from  this  cause  till  its  conquest  by  Canute, 
nearly  forty  years  after,  must  have  again  laid  in  ruins  the  greater 
part  of  its  literary  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  establishments.  The 
concluding  portion  of  the  tenth  century  was  thus,  probably,  a  time 
of  as  deep  intellectual  darkness  in  England  as  it  was  throuohout 
most  of  the  rest  of  Europe.  Under  Canute,  however,  Avho  was  a 
ynse  as  well  as  a  powerful  sovereign,  the  schools  no  doubt  rose 
again  and  flourished.  We  have  the  testimony,  so  far  as  it  is  to  be 
rehed  upon,  of  the  history  attributed  to  Ingulphus,  which  professes 
to  be  written  immediately  after  the  Norman  conquest,  and  the  boy- 
hood of  the  author  of  which  is  made  to  coincide  with  the  early  part 
of  the  reign  of  the  Confessor,  that  at  that  time  seminaries  of  the 
higher  as  well  as  of  elementary  learning  existed  in  Enoland.  In- 
gulphus, according  to  this  account,  having  been  born  in  the  city  of 
London,  was  first  sent  to  school  at  Westminster ;  and  from  West- 
minster he  proceeded  to  Oxford,  where  he  studied  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy  and  the  rhetorical  %vTitings  of  Cicero.  This  is  the  ear- 
liest express  mention  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  if  a  passage  in 
Asser's  work  in  wliich  the  name  occurs  be,  as  is  generally  supposed, 
spurious,  and  if  the  History  passing  under  his  name  Avas  really 
written  by  Ingulphus. 

The  studies  that  were  cultivated  in  those  ages  were  few  in  num- 
ber and  of  very  limited  scope.  Alcuin,  in  a  letter  to  his  patron 
Charlemagne,  has  enumerated,  in  the  fantastic  rhetoric  of  the 
period,  the  subjects  in  whicli  he  instructed  his  pupils  in  the  school 
of  St.  Martin  at  Paris.  "  To  some,"  says  he,  "  I  administer  the 
honey  of  tlie  sacred  writings  ;  others  I  try  to  inebriate  Avitli  the  wine 
of  the  ancient  classics.  I  begin  tlie  nourishment  of  some  with  the 
apples  of  grammatical  subtlety.  I  strive  to  illuminate  many  by  the 
arrangement  of  the  stars,  as  from  the  painted  roof  of  a  lofty 
palace."  In  plain  language,  his  instructions  embraced  grammar, 
the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  astronomy,  and  theology.  In  the 
poem  in  which  lie  gives  an  account  of  his  own  education  at  York, 
the  same  -vvTiter  informs  us  that  the  studies  there  pursued  compre- 
hended, besides  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  poetry,  "the  hai-moiiy  of 
the  sky,  the  lal:)or  of  the  sun  and  moon,  the  five  zones,  the  seven 
wandering  planets  ;  the  laws,  risings,  and  settings  of  the  stars,  and 
the  aerial  motions  of  the   sea;  earthquakes;  the  natuie  of  man, 


DECAY  OF  THE  EARLIEST  ENGLISH  SCHOLARSHIP.       47 

cattle,  birds,  and  wild  beasts,  with  their  various  kinds  and  forms  ; 
and  the  sacred  Scriptures." 

This  poem  of  Alcuin's  is  especially  interesting  for  the  account  it 
gives  us  of  the  contents  of  the  library  collected  by  Archbishop 
Egbert  at  York,  the  benefit  of  which  Alcuin  had  enjoyed  in  his 
early  years,  and  Avhich  he  seems  to  speak  of  in  his  letter  to  Charle- 
magne, already  quoted,  as  far  superior  to  any  collection  then  exist- 
ing in  France.  He  proposes  that  some  of  his  pupils  should  be  sent 
to  York  to  make  copies  of  the  manuscripts  there  for  the  imperial 
library  at  Tours.  Among  them,  he  says,  were  the  works  of  Je- 
rome, Hilary,  Ambrose,  Austin,  Athanasius,  Orosius,  the  Popes 
Gregory  and  Leo,  Basil,  Fulgentius,  Cassiodorus,  John  Chrysos- 
tom,  Athelmus,  Bede,  Victorinus,  Boethius ;  the  ancient  historical 
writers,  as  he  calls  them,  Pompeius  (most  probable  Justin,  the 
epitomizer  of  the  lost  Trogus  Pompeius,)  and  Pliny ;  Aristotle, 
Cicero ;  the  later  poets  Sedulius  and  Juvencus ;  Alcuin  himself, 
Clement,  Prosper,  Paulinus,  Arator,  Fortunatus,  and  Lactantius 
(writers  of  various  kinds,  evidently  thus  jumbled  together  to  suit 
the  exigencies  of  the  verse)  ;  Virgil,  Statins,  Lucan ;  the  author 
of  the  Ars  Grammaticae ;  the  grammarians  and  scholiasts,  Probus, 
Phocas,  Donatus,  Priscian,  and  Servius ;  Eutychius  ;  Pompeius 
(probably  Festus)  and  Commenianus  ;  besides,  he  adds,  many  more 
whom  it  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate.  This  was  certainly  a  A^ery 
extraordinary  amount  of  literary  treasure  to  be  amassed  in  one 
place,  and  by  one  man,  at  a  period  when  books  were  everywhere 
so  scarce  and  necessarily  bore  so  high  a  price.  "  Towards  the  close 
of  the  seventh  century,"  says  Wharton,  in  his  Dissertation  on  the 
Introduction  of  Learning  into  England,  "  even  in  the  Papal  library 
at  Rome,  the  number  of  books  were  so  inconsiderable  that  Pope  St. 
Martin  requested  Sanctamand,  bishop  of  Maestricht,  if  possible,  to, 
supply  this  defect  from  the  remotest  parts  of  Germany.  In  the 
year  855,  Lupus,  abbot  of  Ferrieres  in  France,  sent  two  of  his 
monks  to  Pope  Benedict  the  Third,  to  beg  a  copy  of  Cicero  De 
Oratore  and  Quintilian's  Institutes,  and  some  other  books  :  '  for,' 
says  the  abbot,  '  although  we  have  part  of  these  books,  yet  there  is 
no  whole  or  complete  copy  of  them  in  all  France.'  Albert,  abbot 
of  Gemblours,  who  with  incredible  labor  and  immense  expense  had 
collected  a  hundred  volumes  on  theological  and  fifty  on  profane 
subjects,  imagined  he  had  formed  a  splendid  library.  About  the 
vear  790  Charlemagne  o-ranted  an  unlimited  right  of  huntino;  to  the 


48  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

abbot  and  monks  of  Sitbiu,  for  making  their  gloves  and  girdles  of 
the  skins  of  the  deer  they  Idlled,  and  covers  for  their  books.  We 
may  imagine  that  these  religionists  were  more  fond  of  hunting  than 
of  reading.  It  is  certain  that  they  were  obliged  to  hunt  before 
they  could  read  ;  and,  at  least,  it  is  probable  that  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, and  of  such  materials,  they  did  not  manufacture  many 
volumes.  At  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century  books  were  so 
scarce  in  Spain,  that  one  and  the  same  copy  of  the  Bible,  St.  Je- 
rome's Epistles,  and  some  volumes  of  ecclesiastical  offices  and  mar- 
tyrologies  often  served  several  different  monasteries."  ^  To  these 
instances  we  may  add  what  Bede  relates  in  his  "  History  of  the 
Abbots  of  Wearmouth,"  in  which  monastery  Benedict  Biscop,  the 
founder,  had,  about  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  collected  a  con- 
siderable library,  at  the  cost  not  only  of  much  money,  but  also  of 
no  little  personal  exertion,  having  made  five  journeys  to  Rome  for 
the  purchase  of  books,  relics,  and  other  furniture  and  decorations 
for  the  establishment.  Bede  records  that  Benedict  sold  one  of  his 
volumes,  a  work  on  cosmography,  to  his  sovereign,  Alfred  of  Nor- 
thumberland, for  eight  hides  of  land. 


THE  ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

The  earliest  historically  known  fact  Avith  regard  to  the  English 
language  is,  that  it  was  the  language  generally,  if  not  universally, 
spoken  by  the  barbaric  invaders,  apparently  for  the  greater  part 
of  one  race  or  blood,  though  of  different  tribes,  who,  upon  the 
^breaking  up  of  the  empire  of  the  AVest  in  the  fifth  century,  came 
over  in  successive  throngs  fi'om  the  opposite  continent,  and,  after  a 
protracted  struggle,  acquired  the  possession  and  dominion  of  the 
principal  portion  of  the  province  of  Britain.  They  are  stated  to 
liave  consisted  chiefly  of  Angles  and  Saxons.  But,  although  it  is 
usual  to  designate  them  rather  b}^  the  general  denomination  of  the 
Saxons,  or  Anglo-Saxons,  it  is  probable  that  the  Saxons  were  in 
reality  only  a  section  of  the  Angles.  The  Angles,  of  which  term 
our  modern  English  is  only  another  form,  appears  to  have  been 
■always  recognized  among  themselves  as  the  proper  national  appella- 
^  History  of  Englisli  Poetry,  vol.  i.  p.  cviii.  (edit,  of  1824^. 


THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE.  ,49 

tion.  They  both  concurred,  Angles  and  Saxons  ahke,  after  their 
estabhshment  in  Britain,  in  caUing  their  common  country  Angle- 
land,  or  England,  and  their  common  language  English,  —  that  is, 
the  lancruao-e  of  the  Angles,  —  as  there  can  be  little  doubt  it  had 
been  called  from  the  time  when  it  first  became  known  as  a  distinct 
form  of  human  speech. 

This  English  languase,  since  become  so  famous,  is  ordinarily 
regarded  as  belonging  to  the  Low-Germanic,  or  middle,  group  of 
the  Gothic  tongues.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  classed  with  the  Dutch 
and  the  Flemish,  and  the  dialects  generally  of  the  more  north- 
ern and  low-lying  part  of  what  was  anciently  called  Germany, 
under  which  name  were  included  the  countries  that  we  call  Holland 
and  the  Netherlands,  as  well  as  that  to  which  it  is  now  more  espe- 
cially confined.  It  appears  to  have  been  from  this  middle  region, 
lying  directly  opposite  to  Britain,  that  the  Angles  and  Saxons  and 
other  tribes  by  whom  the  English  language  was  brought  over  to 
that  island  chiefly  came.  At  any  rate,  they  certainly  did  not  come 
fi-om  the  more  elevated  region  of  Southern  Germany.  Nor  does 
the  language  present  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  a  High- 
Germanic  tongue.  What  is  now  called  the  German  language, 
therefore,  though  of  the  same  Gothic  stock,  belongs  to  a  different 
branch  from  our  own.  We  are  only  distantly  related  to  the  Ger- 
mans proper,  or  the  race  among  whom  the  language  and  literature 
now  known  as  the  German  have  originated  and  grown  up.  We 
are,  at  least  in  respect  of  language,  more  nearly  akin  to  the  Dutch 
and  the  Flemings  than  we  are  to  the  Germans.  It  may  even  be 
doubted  if  the  English  language  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  hav- 
ing more  of  a  Scandinavian  than  of  a  purely  Germanic  character, 
—  as,  in  other  words,  more  nearly  resembling  the  Danish  or  Swed- 
ish than  the  modern  German.  The  invading  bands  by  whom  it 
was  originally  brought  over  to  Britain  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centu- 
ries were  in  all  probability  drawn  in  great  part  from  the  Scandina- 
vian countries.  At  a  later  date,  too,  the  population  of  England  was 
directly  recruited  from  Denmark,  and  the  other  regions  around  the 
Baltic  to  a  large  extent.  From  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury the  population  of  all  the  eastern  and  northern  parts  of  the 
country  was  as  much  Danish  as  English.  And  soon  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  eleventh  century  the  sovereignty  was  acquired  by 
the  Danes. 

The  English  language,  although  reckoned  among  modern  lar- 

VOL.    I.  7 


60  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

guages,  IS  already  of  respectable  antiquity.  In  one  sense,  indeed, 
all  languages  may  be  held  to  be  equally  ancient ;  for  we  can  in  no 
case  get  at  the  beginning  of  a  language,  any  more  than  we  can  get 
at  the  beginning  of  a  lineage.  Each  is  merely  the  continuation 
of  a  preceding  one,  from  which  it  cannot  be  separated  in  any  case 
except  by  a  purely  arbitrary  mark  of  distinction.  Take  two  por- 
tions of  the  line  at  some  distance  from  one  another,  and  they  may 
be  very  unlike  ;  yet  the  change  which  has  transformed  the  one  into 
the  other,  or  produced  the  one  out  of  the  other,  has  been,  even 
when  most  active,  so  gradual,  so  perfectly  fi'ee  always  from  any- 
thing that  can  be  called  a  convulsion  or  catastrophe,  so  merely  a 
process  of  growth,  however  varying  in  its  rate  of  rapidity,  that 
there  is  no  precise  point  at  which  it  can  be  said  to  have  begun. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  way  in  whicli  all  languages  have  come  into 
existence  ;  they  have  all  thus  grown  out  of  older  forms  of  speech ; 
none  of  them  have  been  manufactured  or  invented.  It  would  seem 
that  human  skill  coi;ld  as  soon  invent  a  tree  as  invent  a  language. 
The  one  as  well  as  the  other  is  essentially  a  natural  production. 

But,  taking  a  particular  language  to  mean  what  has  ahvays  borne 
the  same  name,  or  been  spoken  by  the  same  nation  or  race,  whicli 
is  the  common  or  conventional  understanding  of  the  matter,  the 
English  may  claim  to  be  older  than  the  great  majority  of  the 
tongues  now  in  use  throughout  Europe.  The  Basque,  perhaps, 
and  the  various  Celtic  dialects  might  take  precedence  of  it ;  but 
hardly  any  others.  No  one  of  the  still  spoken  Germanic  or  Scan- 
dinavian languages  could  make  out  a  distinct  proof  of  its  continuous 
existence  from  an  equally  early  date.  And  the  Romance  tongues, 
the  Italian,  the  Spanish,  the  French,  are  all,  recognized  as  such, 
confessedly  of  much  later  origin. 

The  English  language  is  recorded  to  have  been  known  by  thai 
name,  and  to  have  been  the  national  speech  of  the  same  race,  at 
least  since  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century.  It  was  then,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  the  first  settlers  by  whom  it  was  spoken  established 
themselves  in  the  country  of  which  their  descendants  have  ever 
since  retained  possession.  Call  them  either  Angles,  (that  is,  Eng- 
lish) or  Saxons,  it  makes  no  difference ;  it  is  clear  that,  Avhether  or 
no  the  several  divisions  of  the  invaders  were  all  of  one  blood,  all 
branches  of  a  common  stock,  they  spoke  all  substantially  the  same 
langunge,  the  proper  name  of  which,  as  has  been  stated,  was  the 
Anglish,  or  English,  as  England,  or  Angle-land  (the  land  of  the 


THE  ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.  61 

Angles),  was  the  name  which  the  country  received  from  its  new 
occupants.  And  these  names  of  England  and  English  the  country 
and  the  lang-uage  have  each  retained  ever  since. 

Nor  can  it  be  questioned  that  the  same  tongue  was  spoken  b}- 
the  same  race,  or  races,  long  before  their  settlement  in  Britain. 
The  Angles  figure  as  one  of  the  nations  occupying  the  forest  land 
of  Germany  in  the  picture  of  that  country  sketched  by  Tacitus  in 
the  first  century  of  oui*  era. 

The  most  distinct  and  satisfactory  record,  however,  of  a  language 
is  afforded  by  what  exists  of  it  in  a  written  form.  In  applying  this 
test  or  measure  of  antiquity,  the  reasonable  rule  would  seem  to  be, 
that,  Avherever  we  have  the  clear  beginning  or  end  of  a  distinct 
body  or  continuous  series  of  literary  remains,  there  we  have  the 
beginning  or  end  of  a  language.  Thus,  of  what  is  called  the  Moe- 
sogothic  we  have  no  written  remains  of  later  date  than  the  fourth 
century  (or,  at  any  rate,  than  the  sixth,  if  we  reckon  from  what  is 
probably  the  true  age  of  the  transcripts  which  we  actually  possess)  ; 
and  accordingly  we  hold  the  Moesogothic  to  be  a  language  which 
has  passed  away  and  perished,  notwithstanding  that  there  may  be 
some  other  lanouage  or  lano-uases  still  existino-  of  which  there  is 
good  reason  to  look  upon  it  as  having  been  the  progenitor.  But 
of  the  Enorlish  lanoTiao;e  we  have  a  continuous  succession  of  written 
remains  since  the  seventh  century  at  least ;  that  is  to  say,  we  have 
an  array  of  specimens  of  it  from  that  date  such  as  that  no  two  of 
them  standing  next  to  one  another  in  the  order  of  time  could  pos- 
sibly be  pronounced  to  belong  to  different  languages,  but  only  at 
most  to  two  successive  stages  of  the  same  language.  They  afford 
us  a  record  or  representation  of  the  language  in  which  there  is  no 
gap.  This  cannot  be  said  of  any  other  existing  European  tongue 
for  nearly  so  great  a  length  of  time,  unless  we  may  except  the  two 
principal  Celtic  tongues,  the  Welsh  and  the  Irish. 

The  movement  of  the  language,  however,  during  this  extended 
existence,  has  been  immense.  No  language  ever  ceases  to  move 
until  it  becomes  what  is  called  dead,  which  term,  although  com- 
moidy  understood  to  mean  merely  tliat  the  language  has  ceased  to 
be  spoken,  really  signifies,  here  as  elsewhere,  that  the  life  is  gone 
out  of  it,  which  is  indeed  the  unfailing  accompaniment  of  its  ceasing 
•"o  be  used  as  an  oral  medium  of  communication.  It  cannot  grow 
after  that,  even  if  it  should  still  continue  to  a  certain  extent  to  be 
used  in  writing,  as  has  been  the  case  with  the  Sanscrit  in  the  East 


62  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

and  the  Latin  in  the  West, — except  perhaps  as  the  hair  and  the 
nails  are  said  sometimes  to  grow  after  the  animal  body  is  dead.  It 
is  only  speaking  that  keeps  a  language  alive  ;  writing  alone  will  not 
do  it.  That  has  no  more  than  a  conservative  fiinction  and  eflfect ; 
the  progressive  power,  the  element  of  fermentation  and  change,  in 
a  lancruacre  is  its  vocal  utterance. 

We  shall  find  that  the  English  lanomao-e,  moving;  now  faster,  now 
slower,  throughout  the  twelve  or  thirteen  centuries  over  which  our 
knowledge  of  it  extends,  although  it  has  never  been  all  at  once  or 
suddenly  converted  from  one  form  into  another,  —  which  is  what 
the  nature  of  human  speech  forbids,  —  has  yet  within  that  space 
undergone  at  least  two  complete  revolutions,  or,  in  other  words, 
presents  itself  to  us  in  three  distinct  fonns. 


ORIGINAL   ENGLISH:  — 

COMMONLY  CALLED    SAXON,  OR   ANGLO-SAXON. 

The  English  which  the  Angles  and  Saxons  brought  over  with 
them  from  the  Continent,  when  they  came  and  took  possession  of 
the  greater  part  of  South  Britain  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries, 
differed  from  the  English  that  we  now  speak  and  write  in  two  im- 
portant respects.  It  was  an  unmixed  language  ;  and  it  was  what  is 
called  a  synthetic,  in  contradistinction  to  an  analytic,  language.  Its 
vocables  were  all  of  one  stock  or  lineage ;  and  it  expressed  the 
relations  of  nouns  and  verbs,  not  by  separate  words,  called  auxili- 
aries and  particles,  but  by  terminational  or  other  modifications, — 
that  is,  by  proper  conjugation  and  declension,  —  as  our  present 
English  still  docs  when  it  says,  I  loved  instead  of  I  did  love,  or  The 
Kind's  throne  instead  of  The  throne  of  the  King.  These  two 
characteristics  are  what  constitute  it  a  distinct  form,  or  stage,  of 
the  language :  —  its  synthetic  or  generally  inflected  grammatical 
structure,  and  its  homogeneous  vocabulary. 

As  a  subject  of  philological  study  the  importance  of  this  earliest 
known  form  of  the  English  language  cannot  be  over-estimated  ;  and 
much  of  what  we  possess  written  in  it  is  also  of  great  value  for  the 
matter.  But  the  essential  element  of  a  literature  is  not  matter, 
but  manner.      Here  too,  as  in  everything  else,  the   soul   of  the 


ORIGINAL   ENGLISH.  53 

artistic  is  form  ;  —  beauty  of  form.  Now  of  that  what  has  come 
down  to  us  written  in  this  primitive  English  is,  at  least  for  us  of 
the  present  day,  wholly  or  all  but  wholly  destitute. 

There  is  much  writing  in  forms  of  human  speech  now  extinct, 
or  no  longer  in  oral  use,  which  is  still  intelligible  to  us  in  a  certain 
sort,  but  in  a  certain  sort  only.  It  speaks  to  us  as  anything  that 
is  dead  can  speak  to  us,  and  no  otherwise.  We  can  decipher  it, 
rather  than  read  it.  We  make  it  out  as  it  were  merely  by  the 
touch,  getting  some  such  notion  of  it  as  a  blind  man  might  get  of 
a  piece  of  sculpture  by  j)assing  his  hand  over  it.  This,  for  instance, 
to  take  an  extreme  case,  is  the  position  in  which  we  stand  in  refer- 
ence to  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  on  the  ancient  monuments  of 
Egypt.  They  can  be  read  as  the  multiplication  table  can  be  read. 
But  that  is  all.  There  may  be  nothing  more  in  them  than  there 
is  in  the  multiplication  table  ;  but  if  there  were,  Ave  could  not  get 
at  it.  M.  Champollion,  indeed,  in  his  enthusiasm,  saw  a  vision 
of  an  amatory  or  bacchanalian  song  laughing  under  the  venerable 
veil  of  one  of  them  ;  but  it  is  plain  that  this  must  have  been  an 
illusion.  A  mummy  from  one  of  the  neighboring  tombs,  embalmed 
some  three  or  four  thousand  years  ago,  might  almost  as  soon  be 
expected  to  give  forth  a  living  voice. 

Even  the  ancient  Assyrian  inscriptions,  which  are  in  alphabetical 
characters,  will  certainly  never  be  made  to  render  up  to  us  more 
than  the  dead  matters  of  fact  that  may  be  wrapt  up  in  them.  If 
there  be  any  grace  in  the  manner  in  which  the  facts  are  related, 
any  beauty  of  style  in  the  narrative,  it  has  pei-ished  irretrievably. 
But  this  is  what  also  appears  to  happen,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
in  the  case  even  of  a  language  the  vocabulary  of  which  we  have 
completely  in  our  possession,  and  which  we  are  therefore  quite  able 
to  interpret  so  far  as  regards  the  substance  of  anything  written  in 
it,  whenever  it  has  for  some  time  —  for  a  single  generation,  it  may 
be  —  ceased  both  to  be  spoken  and  to  be  written.  Something  is 
thus  lost,  which  seems  to  be  irrecoverable.  The  two  great  classic 
tongues,  it  is  to  be  observed,  the  old  Greek  and  Latin,  although 
they  have  both  long  passed  out  of  popular  use,  have  always  con- 
tinued to  be  not  only  studied  and  read  by  all  cultivated  minds 
throughout  Europe,  but  to  be  also  extensively  employed  by  the 
learned,  at  least  in  writing.  And  this  has  proved  enough  to  main- 
tain the  modern  world  in  what  may  be  called  a  living  acquaintance 
f:'hh  them,  —  such  an  acquaintance  as  we  have  with  a  person  we 


54  ENGIJSH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

have  conversed  with,  or  a  place  where  we  have  actually  been,  as 
distinguished  fi'om  our  dimmer  conception  of  persons  and  places 
known  to  us  only  by  description.  The  ancient  classic  literature 
charms  us  as  well  as  uiforms  us.  It  addresses  itself  to  the  imao-i- 
nation,  and  to  our  sense  of  the  beautiful,  as  well  as  to  the  under- 
standing. It  has  shape  and  color  and  voice  for  us,  as  well  as 
mere  substance.  Every  word,  and  every  collocation  of  words, 
carries  with  it  a  peculiar  meaning,  or  effect,  which  is  still  appre- 
ciated. The  whole,  in  short,  is  felt  and  enjoyed,  not  simply  inter- 
preted. But  a  language,  which  has  passed  from  what  we  may  caU 
its  natural  condition  of  true  and  full  vitality  as  a  national  speech 
cannot,  apparently,  be  thus  far  preserved,  with  something  of  the 
pulse  of  life  still  beating  in  it,  merely  by  such  a  knowledge  of  it 
being  kept  up  as  enables  us  to  read  and  translate  it.  Still  less  can 
a  language,  the  very  reading  of  which  has  been  for  a  time  sus- 
pended, and  consequently  all  knowledge  whatever  of  it  forgotten, 
ever  be  restored  to  even  the  appearance  of  life.  It  has  become  a 
fossil,  and  cannot  be  resuscitated,  but  only  dug  up.  A  thousand 
facts  warrant  us  in  saying  that  languages,  and  even  words,  are 
subject  to  decay  and  dissolution  as  well  as  the  human  beino-s  of 
whose  combined  mental  and  physical  organizations  they  are  the 
mysterious  product ;  and  that,  once  really  dead,  nothing  can  reani- 
mate their  dust  or  reclothe  their  dry  bones  with  flesh. 

The  original  form  of  the  English  language  is  in  this  state.  It  is 
intelligible,  but  that  is  all.  What  is  written  in  it  can  in  a  certain 
sense  be  read,  but  not  so  as  to  bring  out  from  the  most  elaborate 
compositions  in  it  any  artistic  element,  except  of  the  most  dubious 
and  unsatisfactory  kind.  Either  such  an  element  is  not  present  in 
any  considerable  degree,  or  the  language  is  not  now  intimately 
enough  known  for  any  one  to  be  able  to  detect  it.  If  it  is  not  lit- 
erally dumb,  its  voice  has  for  us  of  the  present  day  entirely  lost  its 
music.  Even  of  the  system  of  measure  and  arrangement  according 
to  which  it  is  ordinarily  disposed  for  the  purposes  of  poetry  we  have 
no  proper  apprehension  or  feeling.  Certain  mechanical  principles 
or  rales  may  have  been  discovered  in  obedience  to  which  the  ver- 
sification appeal's  to  be  constructed ;  but  the  verse  as  verse  remains 
not  the  less  for  oiu*  ears  and  hearts  wholly  voiceless.  When  it  can 
be  distinguished  from  j)rose  at  all  it  is  only  by  certain  marks  or 
characteristics  which  may  indeed  be  perceived  by  the  eye,  or 
counted  on  the  fingers,  but  which  have  no  expression  that  excites 


ORIGINAL   ENGLISH.  65 

in  us  any  mental  emotion.  It  is  little  better  than  if  the  composition 
merely  had  tlie  words  "  This  is  verse  "  written  over  it  or  under  it. 

In  respect  of  everything  else  appertaining  to  the  soul  of  the  lan- 
guage, our  understanding  of  it  is  about  equally  imperfect.  The 
consequence  is,  that,  although  it  can  be  translated,  it  cannot  be 
written.  The  late  Mr.  Conybeare,  indeed,  has  left  us  a  few  speci- 
mens of  verse  in  it  of  his  own  composition ;  but  his  attempts  are  of 
the  slightest  character,  and,  unadventurous  as  they  are,  nobody 
can  undertake  to  say,  except  as  to  palpable  points  of  right  or  wrong 
in  grammar,  whether  they  are  well  or  ill  done.  The  language, 
though  so  far  in  our  hands  as  to  admit  of  being  analyzed  in  gram- 
mars and  packed  up  in  dictionaries,  is  not  recoverable  in  such  a 
degree  as  to  make  it  possible  to  pronounce  with  certainty  whether 
anything  written  in  it  is  artistically  good  or  bad.  As  for  learning 
to  speak  it,  that  is  a  thing  as  little  dreamt  of  as  learning  to  speak 
the  language  of  Swift's  Houyhnhnms. 

When  the  study  of  this  original  form  of  the  national  speech  was 
revived  in  England  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  had 
been  for  welhiigh  four  hundred  years  not  only  what  is  commonly 
called  a  dead  language,  but  a  buried  and  an  utterly  forgotten  one. 
It  may  be  questioned  if  at  least  for  three  preceding  centuries  any 
one  had  been  able  to  read  it.  It  was  first  recurred  to  as  a  theo- 
logical weapon.  Much  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Reformers  gen- 
erally were  drawn  to  the  study  of  the  Greek  language  in  maintain- 
ing the  accordance  of  their  doctrines  with  those  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  of  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  the  English  Reformei-s 
turned  to  the  oldest  writings  in  the  vernacular  tongue  for  evidence 
of  the  comparatively  unromanized  condition  of  the  early  English 
church.  In  the  next  age  history  and  law  began  to  receive  illus- 
tration from  the  same  source.  It  was  not  till  a  considerably  later 
date  that  the  recovered  langviage  came  to  be  studied  with  much  of 
a  special  view  to  its  literary  and  philological  interest.  And  it  is 
only  within  the  present  century  that  it  has  either  attracted  any 
attention  in  other  countries,  or  been  investigated  on  what  are  now 
held  to  be  sormd  principles.  The  specially  theological  period  of 
its  cultivation  may  be  regarded  as  extending  over  the  latter  h:alf 
•)f  the  sixteenth  century,  the  legal  and  historical  period  over  the 
svhole  of  the  seventeenth,  the  philological  of  the  old  school  over 
the  whole  of  the  eighteenth,  and  the  philological  of  the  modern 
school  over  the  nineteenth,  so  far  as  it  has  gone. 


66  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

If  the  English  language  as  it  was  written  a  thousand  years  ago 
had  been  left  to  itself,  and  no  other  action  from  without  had  inter- 
fered with  that  of  its  spontaneous  growth  or  inherent  principles  of 
change  and  development,  it  might  not  have  remained  so  stationary) 
as  some  more  highly-cultivated  languages  have  done  throughout  an 
equal  space  of  time,  but  its  form  in  tlie  nineteenth  century  would 
in  all  probability  have  been  only  a  comparatively  slight  modification 
of  what  it  was  in  the  ninth.  It  would  have  been  essentially  the 
same  lanouao-e.  As  the  case  stands,  the  English  of  the  ninth  cen- 
tury  is  one  language,  and  the  English  of  the  nineteenth  century 
another.  They  differ  at  least  as  much  as  the  Italian  differs-  from 
the  Latin,  or  as  English  differs  from  German.  The  most  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  one  leaves  the  other  unintelligible.  So 
much  is  this  so  that  it  has  long  been  customary  to  chstinguish  them 
by  different  names,  and  to  call  the  original  form  of  the  national 
speech  Saxon,  or  Anglo-Saxon,  as  if  it  were  not  English  at  all.  If 
the  notion  be  that  the  dialect  in  which  most  of  the  ancient  English 
that  has  come  down  to  us  is  written  is  that  which  was  in  use 
among  the  specially  Saxon  ])art  of  the  population,  that  would  have 
been  better  indicated  by  calhng  it,  not  Anglo-Saxon,  but  Saxon 
English.  But  even  such  a  designation  would  be  inapplicable  to 
those  specimens  of  the  language  in  which  there  is  unquestionably 
nothing  whatever  that  is  specially  Saxon,  and  Avhich  recent  inves- 
tigations have  shown  to  be  not  inconsiderable  in  amount,  as  well  as 
of  high  philological  importance  ;  and  it  would  also  leave  the  limita- 
tion of  the  name  Englhh  to  the  more  modern  form  of  the  language 
without  any  warrant  in  the  facts  of  the  case.  Objectionable,  how- 
ever, as  may  be  the  common  nomenclature,  it  is  still  indisputable 
that  we  have  here,  for  all  practicable  purposes,  not  one  language, 
but  two  languages.  The  one  may  have  grown  out  of  the  other, 
and  no  doubt  has  done  so  at  least  in  part  or  in  the  main  ;  but  in 
part  also  the  modern  language  is  of  quite  a  distinct  stock  fi-om  the 
ancient.  Of  English  Literature,  therefore,  and  the  English  Lan- 
guage, commonly  so  called,  the  language  and  literature  of  the 
Angles  and  Saxons  before  the  twelfth  century  make  no  proper  part. 
The  history  of  the  latter  can  only  with  propriety  be  glanced  at  as 
nitrochictory  to  that  of  the  former. 

The  mass  of  writing  that  has  been  preserved  in  this  earlier 
EngHsh  is  very  considerable,  but  only  a  small  portion  of  it  can  be 
•-efrarded  as  cominc:  under  the  head  of  literature.     Even  of  Avhat 


ORIGINAL   ENGLISH.  57 

has  been  printed,  much,  and  that  not  tlie  least  interesting  and  val- 
uable part,  has  no  claim  to  that  title  ;  for  example,  the  numerous 
mere  documents  that  are  given  by  Hickes  in  his  most  learned 
Thesaurus,  and  those  that  compose  the  six  volumes  of  Mr.  Kem- 
ble's  Codex  Diplomaticus.  Most  of  what  is  of  much  value  or 
curiosity  in  the  language  has  now  probably  been  committed  to  the 
press,  —  much  of  it  by  scholars  still  living  or  only  recently  deceased, 
both  in  our  own  and  other  countries.  .The  names  of  Conybeare, 
Ingram,  Sharon  Turner,  Price,  Kemble,  Garnett,  Miss  Gurney, 
Thorpe,  Guest,  Bosworth,  Fox,  Goodwin,  Langley,  Norman,  (3flfer, 
Cardale,  Vernon,  Barnes,  Wright,  Barrow,  Stevenson,  Thorkelin, 
Rask,  Jacob  Grimm,  Leo,  Schmidt,  Ettmiiller,  Lappenberg,  K.  W. 
Bouterwek,  to  mention  no  others,  may  illustrate  the  wide  diffusion 
of  the  interest  that  in  our  day  has  been  and  still  continues  to  be 
taken  in  this  field  of  study. 

The  epic  of  Beowulf  is  the  most  considerable  poetical  composi- 
tion of  which  this  primitive  English  literature  has  to  boast.  It  ex- 
ists only  in  a  single  manuscript,  of  the  tenth  century,  one  of  those 
in  the  Cottonian  Collection,  from  which  it  was  first  published,  with 
a  Latin  translation,  at  Copenhagen,  in  1816,  by  Dr.  G.  J.  Thorke- 
lin, whose  transcript  had  been  made  so  early  as  in  1786.  A  far 
superior  text,  however,  accompanied  by  an  English  translation, 
notes,  and  a  glossary,  was  afterwards  produced  by  Mr.  Kemble,  in 
two  volumes,  the  first  published  in  1833  (and  again  in  1835),  the 
second  in  1837.  Copious  extracts  from  Beowulf  had  previously 
been  given  by  Mr.  Sharon  Turner  in  his  History  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  1803  ;  and  the  English  reader  will  find  a  complete  analysis 
of  the  poem,  with  versions  of  many  passages  in  blank  verse,  in 
Professor  Conybeare's  Illustrations  of  Anglo-Saxon  Poetry,  pub- 
lished in  1826  by  his  brother,  the  Rev.  W.  D.  Conybeare.  There 
is  likewise  an  English  translation  of  the  whole  in  rhyme  by  Pro- 
fessor A.  Diedrich  Wackerbarth,  published  in  1849.  The  only 
other  long  work  in  verse  that  has  been  preserved  is  what  is  some-  y 
times  described  as  a  metrical  version  of  Scripture  history  by  a  poet 
of  the  name  of  Caedmon,  recorded  by  Bede  as  having  lived  in  the 
seventh  century,  but  which  is  in  fact  a  collection  of  separate  Scrip- 
tural narratives,  mostly  paraphrased  from  the  book  of  Genesis, 
possibly  by  various  writers,  and  certainly  of  much  later  date.  It 
was  first  published  from  the  only  known  manuscript,  which  is  of 
the  tenth  century,  and  is  now  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  by  the 

VOL.   I.  8 


58  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

learned  Francis  Junius,  at  Amsterdam,  in  1655  :  but  a  much  more 
commodious  and  in  every  way  superior  edition,  with  an  Enghsh 
U'anslution,  was  brought  out  at  London  in  1832,  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  by  Mr.  Thorpe.  Another,  by  K. 
W.  Bouterwek,  in  two  volumes  octavo,  was  pubhslied  at  Elberfeld 
in  1847  and  1818.  Some  remarkable  coincidences  have  often  been 
noticed  between  Caedmon's  treatment  of  his  first  subject,  that  of 
the  Fall,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  treated  by  Milton,  who 
may  very  possibly,  it  has  been  thought,  have  looked  into  his  pre- 
decessor's .performance,  unless  we  should  rather  suppose  that  a 
common  ancient  source  may  have  suppHed  some  hints  to.  both. 
There  is  also  another  religious  poem,  on  the  subject  of  Judith, 
preserved  in  the  same  Cottonian  volume  with  Beowulf;  but  it  is 
only  a  fragment.  It  was  first  published  by  Edward  Thwaites  in  a 
volume  entitled  Heptateuchus,  containing  the  Five  Books  of  Moses 
and  other  portions  of  Scripture,  Oxford,  1699  ;  and  it  is  reprinted 
in  Thorpe's  Analecta  Anglo-Saxonica,  1834,  and  again  in  1846. 
Other  fragmentary  or  short  pieces  are  a  song  attributed  to  Cajdmon 
(sometimes  styled  the  Elder  Ca^dmon)  in  King  Alfred's  transla- 
tion of  Bede,  which  if  genuine  must  be  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
seventh  century,  and  would  be  the  oldest  specimen  of  the  language 
that  has  been  preserved  ;  a  small  portion  of  a  warlike  chant,  first 
pi'inted  by  Hickes  (Grammatica  Anglo-Saxonica,  192),  and  styled 
by  Kemble,  wdio  has  reproduced  it  in  his  edition  of  Beowulf,  The 
Battle  of  Finnesburh  ;  The  Traveller's  Song,  first  printed  by 
Conybeare ;  several  compositions  mterspersed  in  the  historical 
record  called  the  Chronicle,  of  which  the  most  famous  is  that  on 
the  victory  of  King  Athelstan  over  the  Scots  and  Danes  at  a  place 
called  Brunanburg  in  938  ;  a  considerable  portion  of  a  poem  on 
the  battle  of  Maldon,  fought  in  993,  originally  printed  from  one 
of  the  Cotton  manuscripts,  in  his  Johannis  Glastoniensis  Chronicon, 
1726,  by  Hearne,  who,  however,  mistook  it  for  prose,  and  since 
reproduced  both  by  Conybeare  and  by  Thorpe  (in  the  Analecta)  ; 
and  others  in  the  two  collections  knoAvn  as  the  Exeter  and  the 
Vercelli  Manuscripts,  both  which  have  now  been  edited  in  full, 
the  former  (which  is  of  the  eleventh  century)  by  Thorpe  in  1842, 
the  latter  (having  however  been  previously  printed  in  an  appendix 
to  the  Record  Commission  edition  of  Rymer's  Foedera)  by  Kemble, 
for  the  JElfi-ic  Society,  in  1843. 

One   romance   in  prose  has  been  discovered,  on  the  mediaeval 


ORIGINAL   ENGLISH.  59 

itory  of  ApoUonius  of  Tjrre  (the  same  on  which  the  play  of  Peri- 
cles, attributed  to  Shakspeare,  is  founded)  ;  of  this  also  an  edition 
by  Mr.  Thorpe,  with  a  literal  translation,  appeared  in  1834.  Of 
the  other  prose  remains  the  most  important  are  the  fragments  of 
the  Laws,  among  which  are  some  of  those  of  Ethelbert,  king  of 
Kent,  who  reigned  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth  and  the  early  part 
of  the  seventh  century,  but  evidently  reduced  to  the  language  of 
a  later  age  ;  the  Chronicle,  the  earlier  portion  of  which  is  chiefly 
a  compilation  from  the  Historia  Ecclesiastica  of  Bede,  but  which 
may  be  regarded  as  a  contemporary  register  of  public  events  from 
perhaps  about  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  and  which  termi- 
nates at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Stephen  in  1154  ;  the  various 
works  of  King  Alfred,  which,  however,  are  all  in  the  main  only 
translations  from  the  Latin,  though  occasionally  interspersed  with 
original  matter  ;  his  Pastoi'ale  of  Pope  Gregory,  his  Boethius  De 
Consolatione  Philosophic  (with  the  verse  in  some  of  the  copies 
metrically  paraphrased  and  expanded),  his  English  Ecclesiastical 
History  of  Bede,  and  his  General  History  of  Orosius  ;  and  the 
various  theological,  grammatical,  and  other  writings  of  Alfric,  or 
JElfric,  generally  supposed  to  have  been  the  individual  of  the  same 
name  who  was  archbishop  of  Canterbury  from  995  to  1006. 
There  are  also  translations  of  the  Pentateuch,  the  Psalms,  the 
Gospels,  and  other  parts  of  Scripture  ;  and  numerous  Hves  of 
saints,  besides  some  treatises  on  medicine  and  botany,  and  a  great 
many  wills,  charters,  and  other  legal  instruments.  Portions  of  the 
Laws  were  given  in  William  Lambarde's  Archaionomia,  4to.,  1568, 
and  fob,  1643,  by  Hickes  in  his  Dissertatio  Epistolaris  (in  the 
Thesaurus),  and  in  Hearne's  Textus  Roffensis,  Oxford,  1720  ;  and 
there  are  complete  collections  by  Wilkins,  1721 ;  by  Dr.  Reinhold 
Schmidt,  Leipzig,  1832  ;  and  by  Thorpe  (for  the  Record  Commis- 
sion), 1840.  Of  the  Chronicle,  of  which  there  are  many  manu- 
scripts more  or  less  perfect,  a  portion  was  appended  by  Wheloc  to 
his  Bede's  Historia  Ecclesiastica,  with  Alfred's  translation,  Cam- 
bridge, 1643  ;  the  earliest  edition  of  the  whole  was  that  of  Bishop 
Gibson,  with  a  Latin  translation,  Oxford,  1692  ;  and  there  have 
since  appeared  that  of  the  Rev.  J.  Ingram,  London,  1823,  and 
that,  by  the  late  Richard  Price,  Esq.,  contained  in  the  Monumenta 
Historica  Britannica,  1848  (coming  down,  however,  only  to  the 
Norman  Conquest),  both  with  translations  into  English.  An  Eng- 
lish MS.  translation  by  the  late  Richard  Gough,  Esq.,  is  preserved, 


60  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

with  tlie  rest  of  his  collection,  in  the  Bodleian  Library ;  and 
another,  printed,  but  not  published,  by  the  late  Miss  Gurney,  of 
Keswick,  Norfolk,  in  1819,  has  been  made  the  basis  of  that  edited 
by  Dr.  Giles,  along  with  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History,  in  one  of 
the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library,  1849.  The  Chronicle 
"  in  part  translated,"  by  Mr.  Stevenson,  is  contained  in  the  First 
Part  of  the  Second  Volume  of  The  Church  Historians  of  Eng- 
land, 1853.  Many  portions  of  it  are  also  given  in  the  original  in 
a  volume  entitled  Ancient  History,  English  and  French,  exempli- 
fied in  a  regular  dissection  of  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  8vo.,  Lond. 
1830.  Of  the  translations  from  the  Latin  attributed  to  Alfred  the 
Great,  the  preface  to  the  Pastorale  of  Pope  Gregory  was  first 
printed,  with  a  Latin  translation,  by  Archbishop  Parker,  along 
with  his  edition  of  Asser's  (Latin)  Life  of  Alfred,  fob,  Lond.  1574 ; 
from  this  it  was  transferred  to  a  scarce  octavo  volume  published  at 
Leyden  in  1597,  with  the  title  of  De  Literis  et  Lingua  Getarum, 
sive  Gothorum,  by  a  writer  calling  himself  Bonaventura  Vulcanius 
Brugensis,  meaning,  it  has  been  conjectvu'ed,  Smidt,  or  De  Smet, 
of  Bruges,  and  who  has  been  asserted  to  have  really  been  Antony 
Morillon,  secretary  to  Cardinal  Grandvelle  ;  it  is  also  given  along 
with  his  reprint  of  Asser  by  Camden  in  his  Collection,  published 
at  Francfort  in  1603,  and  in  Wise's  Asser,  8vo.,  Oxford,  1722; 
and  Mr.  Wright  has  inserted  it,  with  an  English  translation,  in  his 
Biographia  Britannica  Literaria,  1842,  vol.  i.  pp.  397-400.  The 
version  of  Boethius  De  Consolatione  Philosophise  was  first  edited 
by  Christopher  Rawllnson,  8vo.,  Oxford,  1698  ;  and  there  are 
modern  editions  of  the  prose,  with  an  English  translation  and 
notes,  by  Mr.  J.  S.  Cardale,  8vo.,  Lond.  1829,  and  of  the  verse 
(Alfred's  claim  to  Avhich,  however,  is  very  doubtftil),  also  with  an 
English  translation  and  notes,  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  Fox,  Svo., 
Lond.  1835.  Alfred's  Orosius  was  first  edited,  "with  an  English 
translation  from  the  Anglo-Saxon,"  by  the  Hon.  Daines  Barrmg- 
ton,  in  1773  ;  and  it  has  been  reproduced,  with  a  new  translation 
by  ]\Ir.  Thorpe,  in  a  very  convenient  form,  along  with  Dr.  R. 
Pauli's  Life  of  Alfred,  in  one  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiqua 
rian  Library,  1853.  Alfred's  Bede  was  published,  in  folio,  at 
Cambridge,  first  by  Wheloc  in  1643,  and  again  by  Dr.  John 
Smith,  with  large  and  learned  annotations,  in  1722.  We  may 
mention  that  a  collection,  professing  to  contain  "  The  Whole 
Works  of  King  Alfred  the  Great,  with  Preliminary  Essays  Illus- 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST.  61 

tratire  of  the  History,  Arts,  and  Manners  of  the  Ninth  Century," 
and  calUng  itself  the  Jubilee  Edition,  was  produced  at  London,  by 
"  the  Alfred  Committee,"  in  2  vols,  (commonly  bomid  in  3),  in 
1852.  It  consists,  hoAvever,  only  of  translations  into  modern 
English. 

The  various  treatises  passing  under  the  name  of  Alfric,  ^Elfric, 
or  Elfric,  have  recently  engaged  much  attention,  and  the  name 
has  been  assumed  by  a  society  established  some  years  ago  for  the 
publication  of  litei'ary  remains  in  early  English.  He  is  known  by 
the  titles  of  the  Grammarian  and  the  Abbot ;  and  the  writino-s 
attributed  to  him,  which  are  very  numerous,  are  mostly  theological 
and  grammatical.  The  Alfric  Society  has  published  a  collection 
of  his  Homilies,  edited,  with  a  translation,  by  Mr.  Thorpe,  in  2 
vols.  8vo.,  1854 ;  and  a  Latin  grammar,  compiled  by  him  in  his 
native  language,  first  published  by  Somner  in  his  Dictionarium 
Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum,  Oxford,  1659,  has  been  reprinted  in 
part,  from  a  different  manuscript,  at  the  expense  of  Sir  Thomas 
Phillipps.  For  further  information  respecting  JSlfric  and  his  works 
the  reader  is  referred  to  the  account  of  him  given  by  Mr.  Wright 
in  the  first  volume  of  the  Biographia  Britannica  Literaria,  pp.  480- 
494.  His  Homilies,  Mr.  Wright  observes,  are  "  written  in  very 
easy  Anglo-Saxon,  and  form  on  that  account  the  best  book  for  the 
student  who  is  beginning  to  study  the  language." 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST. 

The  year  1066  is  memorable  as  that  of  the  Norman  Conquest, 
—  the  conquest  of  England  by  the  Normans.  The  conquests  of 
which  we  read  in  the  history  of  nations  arc  of  three  kinds.  Some- 
times one  population  has  been  overwhelmed  by  or  driven  before 
another  as  it  might  have  been  by  an  inundation  of  the  sea,  or  at 
the  most  a  small  number  of  the  old  inhabitants  of  the  invaded  ter- 
ritory have  been  permitted  to  remain  on  it  as  the  bondsmen  of  theii 
conquerors.  This  appears  to  have  been  the  usual  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding of  the  barbarous  races,  as  we  call  them,  by  which  the 
greater  part  of  Europe  was  occupied  in  early  times,  in  their  con- 
.ests  with  one  another.     When  the  Teuton  or  Goth  from  the  one 


62  ENGLISFl   LITERATURE  AND   LANGUAGE. 

side  of  tlie  Rhine  attacked  the  Celt  on  the  other  side,  the  whole 
tribe  precipitated  itself  upon  what  was  the  object  at  once  of  its  hos- 
tility and  of  its  cupidity.  Or  even  if  it  was  one  division  of  the 
gi'eat  Gothic  race  that  made  war  upon  another,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Scandinavian  upon  any  Germanic  country,  the  course  that  was 
taken  was  commonly,  or  at  least  frequently,  the  same.  The  land 
was  cleared  by  driving  away  all  who  could  fly,  and  the  universal 
massacre  of  the  rest.  This  primitive  kind  of  invasion  and  conquest 
belonged  properly  to  the  night  of  barbarism,  but  in  certain  of  the 
extreme  parts  of  the  European  system  something  of  it  survived 
down  to  a  comparatively  late  date.  Much  that  we  are  told,  of  the 
manner  in  which  Britain  was  wrested  from  its  previous  Celtic  occu 
pants  by  the  Angles  and  Saxons  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  of 
our  era  would  lead  us  to  think  that  the  enterprise  of  these  invaders 
was  both  originally  conceived  and  conducted  throughout  in  this 
spirit.  Nay,  for  some  centuries  after  this  we  have  the  Danes  in 
their  descents  and  inroads  upon  all  parts  of  the  British  territories 
still  acting,  apparently,  in  the  same  style.  But,  ever  from  the  time 
of  the  settlement  of  the  barbarous  nations  in  the  more  central  prov- 
inces of  the  old  Roman  Empire,  another  kind  of  conquest  had  come 
into  use  among  them.  Corrupted  and  enfeebled  as  it  was,  the 
advanced  civilization  which  they  now  encountered  seems  to  have 
touched  them  as  with  a  spell,  or  rather  could  not  but  communicate 
to  its  assailants  something  of  its  own  spirit.  A  policy  of  mere 
destruction  was  evidently  not  the  course  to  be  adopted  here.  The 
value  of  the  conqiiest  lay  mainly  in  preserving  as  far  as  possible 
both  the  stupendous  material  structures  and  the  other  works  of  art 
by  which  the  soil  was  everywhere  covered  and  adorned,  and  the 
li\'ino;  intelligence  and  skill  of  which  all  these  wonders  were  the 
product.  Hence  the  second  kind  of  conquest,  in  which  for  the  first 
time  the  conquerors  were  contented  to  share  the  conquered  country, 
usually  according  to  a  strictly  defined  proportional  division,  with  its 
previous  occupants.  But  this  system  too  was  only  transitory.  It 
passed  away  with  the  particular  crisis  which  gave  birth  to  it ;  and 
then  arose  the  third  and  last  kind  of  conquest,  in  which  there  is  no 
general  occupation  of  the  soil  of  the  conquered  country  by  the  con- 
querors, but  only  its  doininion  is  acquired  by  them. 

The  first  of  tlie  tlu-ee  kinds  of  conquest,  then,  has  for  its  object 
and  effect  the  com})lete  displacement  of  the  ancient  inlialiitants. 
It  is  the  kind  which  is  proper  to  the   contests  of  barbarians  with 


THE   NORMAN    CONQUEST.  63 

Darbarians.  Under  the  second  form  of  conquest  the  conquerors, 
recognizing  a  superiority  to  themselves  in  many  other  things  even 
in  those  whom  their  superior  force  or  ferocity  has  subdued,  feel  tliat 
they  will  gain  most  by  foregoing  something  of  their  right  to  the 
wholesale  seizure  and  appropriation  of  the  soil,  and  neither  wholly 
destroying  or  expelling  its  ancient  possessors,  nor  even  reducing 
them  to  a  state  of  slavery,  but  only  treating  them  as  a  lower  caste. 
This  is  the  form  proper  and  natural  to  the  exceptional  and  rare  ease 
of  the  conquest  of  a  civilized  by  a  barbarous  people.  Finally,  there 
is  that  kind  of  subjugation  of  one  people  or  country  by  another 
which  results  simply  in  the  overthrow  of  the  independence  of  the 
foiTner,  and  the  substitution  in  it  or  over  it  of  a  foreign  for  a  native 
government.  This  is  generally  the  only  kind  of  conquest  which 
attends  upon  the  wars  of  civilized  nations  Avith  one  another. 

The  conquest  of  England  by  the  Normans  in  the  year  1066  may 
be  regarded  as  having  been  professedly  a  conquest  of  this  last 
description.  The  age  of  both  the  first  and  the  second  kinds  of 
conquest  was  over,  at  least  everywhere  throughout  Europe  except 
it  may  be  onjy  along  some  few  portions  of  its  extreme  northern 
boundary.  '^Both  the  English  and  the  Normans  stood  indisputably 
within  the  pale  of  civilization,  the  former  boasting  the  possession 
both  of  Christianity  and  of  a  national  literature  for  four  or  five  cen- 
turies, the  latter,  if  more  recently  reclaimed  from  paganism  and 
barbarism,  nevertheless  already  recognized  as  one  of  the  most 
brilliantly  gifted  of  European  races,  and  distinguished  for  their 
superior  aptitude  in  the  arts  both  of  war  and  of  peace,  of  polity 
and  of  songy/'And  the  Norman  leader,  having  with  him  in  his 
enterprise  tne  approval  and  sanction  of  the  Church,  claimed  the 
English  crown  as  his  by  right ;  nor  were  there  probably  wanting 
many  Englishmen,  although  no  doubt  the  general  national  feeling 
was  different,  who  held  his  claim  to  be  fully  as  good  in  law  and  jus- 
tice as  that  of  his  native  competitor.  In  taking  the  style  of  the 
Coiiqueror  with  respect  to  England,  as  he  had  been  wont  to  take 
that  of  the  Bastard  with  reference  to  his  ancestral  Normandy,  Wil- 
liam, as  has  been  often  explained,  probably  meant  nothing  more 
than  that  he  had  acquired  his  English  sovereignty  for  himself,  by 
the  nomination  or  bequest  of  his  relation  King  Edward,  or  in  what- 
eA^er  other  way,  and  had  not  succeeded  to  it  under  the  ordinary 
rule  of  descent.  Such  a  right  of  property  is  still,  in  the  old  feudal 
tarrguage,  technically  described  in  the  law  of  Scotland  as  acquired 


64  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

by  conquest,  and  in  that  of  England  by  purchase,  which_is  etymo- 
logically  of  the  same  meaning, — the  one  word  being  the  Latin 
Conqucestus,  or  Conquisitio,  the  other  Perquisitio. 

And  in  point  of  fact  the  Normans  never  transferred  themselves 
m  a  body,  or  generally,  to  England.  They  did  not,  like  the  bar- 
barous populations  of  a  preceding  age,  abandon  for  this  new  coun- 
try the  one  in  which  they  had  previously  dwelt.  Eiigland  was 
never  thus  taken  possession  of  by  the  Normans.  It  was  never 
colonized  by  these  foreigners,  or  occupied  l)y 'them  in  any  other^ 
than  a  military  sense.  The  Norman  Duke  invaded  it  with  an 
army,  raised  partly  among  his  own  subjects,  partly  drawn  from 
other  regions  of  the  Continent,  and  so  made  himself  master  of  it. 
It  received  a  foreign  government,  but  not  at  all  a  new  population. 

Two  causes,  however,  meeting  from  opposite  points,  and  working 
together,  soon  produced  a  resvilt  which  was  to  some  extent  the 
same  that  would  have  been  produced  by  a  Norman  colonization. 
Tiie  first  was  the  natural  demand  on  the  part  of  William's  follow- 
ers or  fellow-soldiers  for  a  share  in  the  profits  and  advantages  of 
their  common  enterprise,  which  would  probably  in  any  case  have 
compelled  him  eventually  to  surrender  his  new  subjects  to  spolia- 
tion ;  the  second  was  the  equally  natural  restlessness  of  the  latter 
imder  the  foreign  yoke  that  had  been  imposed  iipon  them,  bv  Avhich 
they  only  facilitated  the  ])rocess  of  their  general  reduction  to  pov- 
erty and  ruin. 

And  to  the  overthrow  thus  brought  about  of  the  native  civili- 
zation Avas  added,  in  the  present  case,  the  intrusion  of  another 
system  of  social  organization,  and  of  another  language  possessing 
also  its  own  literature,  to  take  the  ])lace  of  what  Avas  passing 
away.  So  that  here  again  were  two  distinct  forces  harmoniously, 
though  by  movements  in  opposite  directions,  cooperating  to  a  com- 
mon end.  At  the  same  time  that  English  culture  shrunk  and 
faded,  Norman  culture  flourished  and  advanced.  And  the  two 
forces  were  not  balanced  or  in  any  way  connected,  but  quite  in- 
dependent the  one  of  the  other.  English  culture  went  down,  not 
under  the  disastrous  influence  of  the  rival  light,  but  from  the  fail- 
ure of  its  own  natural  aliment,  or  because  the  social  structure  of 
which  it  was  the  product  had  been  smitten  with  universal  disor- 
fjani/ation.  It  was  the  Avithering  of  life  throughout  the  whole 
frame  that  made  the  eye  dim. 

The  difference,  then,  betAveen  the  case  of  Englani  conquered 


THE   NORMAN   CONQUEST.  65 

by  the  Normans  in  the  eleventh  century  and  that  of  Italy  over- 
run by  the  Goths  in  the  fifth,  was  twofold.  First,  the  Nonnans 
did  not  settle  in  England,  as  the  barbarous  nations  of  the  North 
did  in  Italy  and  other  provinces  of  the  subjugated  Western  Em- 
pire ;  but,  secondly,  on  the  other  hand,  the  new  power  which  the 
Norman  invasion  and  conquest  of  England  established  in  the  coun- 
try was  not  a  barbarism,  but  another  civilization  in  most  respects 
at  least  as  advanced  as  the  indigenous  one  ;  —  if  younger,  only 
therefore  the  stronger  and  more  aspiring,  and  yet,  as  it  proved,  not 
differing  so  far  fi'om  that  with  which  it  was  brought  into  competi- 
tion as  to  be  incapable  of  coalescing  with  it,  if  need  were,  as  well 
as,  in  other  circumstances,  with  its  advantages  of  position,  out- 
shining it  or  casting;  it  into  the  shade. 

— o  o 

In  this  way  it  came  to  pass  that  the  final  result  to  both  the 
language  and  the  literature  of  the  conquered  people  was  pretty 
much  the  same  in  the  two  cases.  What  the  barbaric  influence, 
in  its  action  upon  the  Latin  language  and  literature,  wanted  of 
positive  vital  force  it  made  up  for  by  its  mass  and  weight ;  the 
Norman  influence,  on  the  contrary,  compensated  by  quality  for 
its  deficiency  in  quantity.  There  Avas  considerable  difference, 
however,  in  the  process  by  which  the  transformation  was  effected 
in  the  two  cases,  and  in  the  length  of  time  which  it  occupied^ 
The  Gothic  barbarism  was  in  the  first  instance  simply  destruc» 
tive  ;  it  was  not  till  after  some  centuries  that  it  came  to  be  visibly 
or  appreciably  anything  else.  But  the  Norman  influence,  in  virtue 
of  being  that,  not  of  a  barbarism,  but  of  a  civilization,  and  es- 
pecially of  a  civilization  still  in  all  the  radiant  bloom  and  buoyant 
pride  of  youth,  never  could  have  been  directly  destructive  ;  from 
the  first  moment  of  their  actual  contact  it  must  have  communi- 
cated to  the  native  civilization  something  of  new  life. 

One  thing  further  may  be  noted.  In  both  the  cases  that  we 
have  been  comparing  the  result  was  the  combination,  both  in  the 
language  and  the  literature,  of  the  same  two  elements  ;  namely, 
the  Latin  (or  Classical)  and  the  Gothic  (or  Germanic,  in  the  larg 
est  sense).  But  the  important  difference  was,  that,  the  basis  of 
the  combination  remaining  in  each  case  what  it  originally  was,  — 
Latin  in  Italy,  in  France,  in  Spain,  but  Gothic  in  England,  —  while 
the  language  and  literature  that  grew  up  in  each  of  the  former 
countries  came  to  be  in  general  spirit  and  character  what  is  called 
Romance,  which  must  be  understood  to  mean  modified  Roman,  the 

VOL.    I.  9 


66  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

EnfjUsli  lano;uage  and  literature  retained  their  original  fvindanien- 
tallv  Gothic  character,  only  modified  by  so  much  as  it  has  absorbed 
of  a  Latin  element. 

And  the  remarkable  distinction  of  the  English  language  is,  that 
it  is  the  only  one  of  all  the  languages  of  the  European  world 
which,  thus  combining  the  two  elements  of  the  Classic  and  the 
Gothic,  —  that  is,  as  we  may  say,  of  ancient  and  of  modern  civ- 
ilization, —  is  Gothic,  or  modern,  in  its  skeleton,  or  bony  system, 
and  in  its  formative  principle,  and  Classic,  or  antique,  only  in 
what  of  it  is  comparatively  superficial  and  non-essential.  The 
other  living  European  languages  are  either  without  the  Classic  ele- 
ment altogether,  as  are  all  those  of  the  Scandinavian  and  Teutonic 
brandies,  or  have  it  as  their  principal  and  governing  element,  as  is 
the  case  Avith  the  Italian,  the  French,  and  the  Spanish,  which  may 
all  be  described  as  only  modernized  fonns  of  the  Latin.  Even  in 
the  proportion,  too,  in  which  the  two  elements  are  combined  the 
English  has  greatly  the  advantage  over  these  Romance  tongues,  as 
they  are  called,  in  none  of  whicli  is  there  more  than  a  mere  sprink- 
ling of  the  modern  element,  whereas  in  English,  althovigh  here  that 
constitutes  the  dominant  or  more  active  portion  of  the  compound^ 
the  countei'j)oising  ingredient  is  also  present  in  large  quantity,  and 
is  influential  to  a  very  high  degree  upon  the  general  character  of 
the  language. 

It  should  seem  to  follow  from  all  this,  that,  both  in  its  inner 
spirit  and  in  its  voice,  both  in  its  constructional  and  in  its  mu- 
sical genius,  the  English  language,  and,  through  that,  English  lit- 
erature, English  civilization  or  culture  generall}'",  and  the  whole 
temper  of  the  English  mind,  ought  to  have  a  capacity  of  sympa- 
thizing at  once  with  the  Classical  and  the  Gothic,  with  the  antique 
and  the  modern,  with  the  past  and  the  present,  to  an  extent  not  to 
be  matched  by  any  other  speech  or  nation  of  Europe. 

It  so  happens,  too,  that  the  political  fortunes  of  this  English 
t/)ng\ie  have  been  in  singular  accordance  with  its  constitution  and 
natural  adaptation,  inasmuch  as,  at  the  same  time  that  it  stands  in 
tliis  remarkable  position  in  the  Old  World,  its  position  is  still  more 
preeminent  in  the  New  World,  whether  that  designation  be  con- 
fined to  the  continent  of  America  or  understood  as  including  the 
entire  field  of  modern  colonization  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 
The  English  are  the  only  really  colonizing  jieople  now  extant.  As 
we  remember  Coleridge  once  expressing  it,  it  is  the  natural  des- 


ARABIC   AND   OTHER  NEW  LEARNING.  67 

hny  of  their  country,  as  an  island,  to  be  the  mother  of  nations. 
Their  geographical  position,  concumng  with  their  peculiar  genius, 
and  with  all  the  other  favorable  circumstances  of  the  case,  gives 
them  the  command  of  the  readiest  access  to  the  most  distant  parts 
of  the  earth,  —  a  universal  highway,  almost  as  free  as  is  the  air 
to  the  swarming  bees.  And,  accordingly,  all  the  greatest  com- 
munities of  the  ftiture,  whether  they  be  seated  beyond  the  Atlan- 
tic or  beyond  the  Pacific,  promise  to  be  communities  of  English 
blood  and  English  speech. 


ARABIC  AND  OTHER  NEW  LEARNING. 

The  space  of  about  a  thousand  years,  extending  from  the  over- 
throw of  the  Western  Roman  Empire,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century,  to  that  of  the  Eastern,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth,  may 
be  divided  into  two  nearly  equal  parts :  the  first  of  which  may  be 
considered  as  that  of  the  gradual  decline,  the  second  as  that  of  the 
gradual  revival  of  letters.  The  former,  reaching  to  the  close  of 
the  tenth  century,  nearly  corresponds,  in  its  close  as  well  as  in  its 
commencement,  with  the  domination  in  England  of  the  Angles  and 
Saxons.  In  Europe  generally,  throughout  this  long  space  of  time, 
the  intellectual  darkness,  notwithstanding  some  brief  and  partial 
revivals,  deepens  more  and  more  on  the  whole,  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  in  the  natural  day  the  gray  of  evening  passes  into  the  gloom 
of  midnight.  The  Latin  learning,  properly  so  called,  may  be 
regarded  as  terminating  with  Boethius,  who  wrote  in  the  early 
part  of  the  sixth  century.  The  Latin  language,  however,  contin- 
ued to  be  used  in  literary  compositions,  as  well  as  in  the  services  of 
the  Church,  both  in  otu-  own  country  and  in  the  other  parts  of 
Europe  that  had  composed  the  old  empire  of  Rome. 

The  Danish  conquest  of  England,  as  completed  by  the  accession 
of  Canute,  preceded  the  Norman  by  exactly  half  a  century,  and 
throughout  this  space,  the  country  had,  with  little  interruption, 
enjoyed  a  government  which,  if  not  always  national,  — and  it  was 
that  too  for  rather  more  than  half  of  the  fifty  years,  —  was  at  any 
rate  acknowledged  and  submitted  to  by  the  whole  nation.  The 
public  tranquillity  was  scarcely  ever  disturbed  for  more  than  a  mo* 


68  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

ment  by  any  internal  commotion,  and  never  at  all  hy  attacks  fi'orc 
abroad.  Dnrinu;  this  interval,  therefore,  many  of  the  monastic  and 
other  schools  that  had  existed  in  the  days  of  Alfi'ed,  Athelstan,  and 
Edgar,  but  had  been  swept  away  or  allowed  to  flill  into  decay  in 
the  disastrous  forty  years  that  succeeded  the  decease  of  the  last- 
mentioned  monarch,  were  probably  reestablished.  The  more  fre- 
quent communication  with  the  Continent  that  began  in  the  reign 
of  the  Confessor  must  also  have  been  fovorable  to  the  intellectual 
advancement  of  the  country.  The  dawn  of  the  revival  of  Jetters 
in  England,  therefore,  may  be  properly  dated  from  a  point  about 
fifty  years  antecedent  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  or  fi'om  not  very 
long  after  the  commencement  of  the  eleventh  century. 

Still  at  the  date  of  the  Conquest  the  country  was  undoubtedly  in 
regard  to  everything  intellectiial  in  a  very  backward  state.  Orde- 
ricus  Vitalis,  almost  a  contemporary  writer,  and  himself  a  native 
of  England,  though  educated  abroad,  describes  his  countrjnnen  gen- 
erally as  having  been  fomid  by  the  Normans  a  rustic  and  almost 
ilHterate  people  (agrestes  et  pene  illiteratos).  The  last  epithet  may 
be  understood  as  chiefly  intended  to  characterize  the  clergy,  for  the 
great  body  of  the  laity  at  this  time  were  everyAvhere  illiterate.  A 
few  years  after  the  Conquest,  the  king  took  advantage  of  the  gen- 
eral illiteracy  of  the  native  clergy  to  deprive  great  numbers  of 
them  of  their  benefices,  and  to  supply  their  places  with  foreigners. 
His  real  or  his  onlj'"  motive  for  making  this  substitution  may 
possibly  not  have  been  that  which  he  avowed ;  but  he  would 
scarcely  have  alleged  what  was  notoriously  not  the  fact,  even  as  a 
tence. 
'The  Norman  Conquest  introduced  a  new  state  of  things  in  this 
as  in  most  other  respects.  That  event  made  England,  as  it  were,  a 
jiart  of  the  Continent,  where,  not  long  before,  a  revival  of  letters 
liad  taken  place  scarcely  less  remarkable,  if  we  take  into  considera- 
tion the  circumstances  of  the  time,  than  the  next  great  revolution 
of  the  same  kind  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In 
France,  indeed,  the  learning  that  had  floui-ished  in  the  time  of 
Charlemagne  had  never  undergone  so  great  a  decay  as  had  befallen 
that  of  England  since  the  days  of  Alfred.  The  schools  planted 
by  Alcuin  and  the  philosophy  taught  bv  Erigena  had  both  been 
i)('r])etuatcd  by  a  line  of  the  disciples  and  followers  of  these  dis- 
tinguished masters,  which  had  never  been  altogether  interrupted. 
Hut  in  the  tcntli  centuiT  this  learnino;  of  the  West  had  met  and 


pre^€ 


ARABIC   AND    OTHER  NEW   LEARNING.  69 

been  intermixed  with  a  new  learning  originally  from  the  East,  but 
obtained  directly  from  the  Arab  conquerors  of  Spain.  The  Arabs 
had  first  become  acquainted  with  the  literature  of  Greece  in  the 
beginning  of  the  eighth  century,  and  it  instantly  exercised  upon 
their  minds  an  awakening  influence  of  the  same  powerful  kind  with 
that  with  which  it  again  kindled  Europe  seven  centuries  afterwards. 
One  difference,  however,  between  the  two  cases  is  very  remarkable. 
The  mighty  effects  that  arose  out  of  the  second  revival  of  the  an- 
cient Greek  literature  in  the  modern  world  were  produced  almost 
solely  by  its  eloquence  and  poetry ;  but  these  were  precisely  the 
parts  of  it  that  were  neglected  by  the  Arabs.  The  Greek  books 
which  they  sought  after  with  such  extraordinary  avidity  were  almost 
exclusively  those  that  related  either  to  metaphysics  and  mathe- 
matics on  the  one  hand,  or  to  medicine,  chemistry,  botany,  and  the 
other  departments  of  physical  knowledge,  on  the  other.  All  Greek 
works  of  these  descriptions  that  they  could  procure  they  not  only 
translated  into  their  own  language,  but  in  course  of  time  illustrated 
with  voluminous  commentaries.  The  prodigious  magnitude  to 
which  this  Arabic  literature  eventually  grew  will  stagger  the  reader 
who  has  adopted  the  common  notion  with  regard  to  what  are  called 
the  middle  or  the  dark  ages.  "  The  royal  library  of  the  Fatimites  " 
(sovereigns  of  Egypt),  says  Gibbon,  "  consisted  of  100,000  man- 
uscripts, elegantly  transcribed  and  splendidly  bound,  which  were 
lent,  without  jealousy  or  avarice,  to  the  students  of  Cairo.  Yet  this 
collection  must  appear  moderate,  if  we  can  believe  that  the  Ommi- 
ades  of  Spain  had  formed  a  library  of  600,000  volumes,  44  of 
which  were  employed  in  the  mere  catalogues.  Their  capital  Cor- 
dova, with  the  adjacent  towns  of  Malaga,  Almeria,  and  Murcia, 
had  given  birth  to  more  than  300  writers,  and  above  70  public 
Hbraries  were  opened  in  the  cities  of  the  Andalusian  kingdom."  ^ 
The  difficulty  we  have  in  conceiving  the  existence  of  a  state  of 
things  such  as  that  here  described  arises  in  great  part  from  the  cir- 
cmnstance  of  the  entire  disappearance  now,  and  for  so  long  a 
period,  of  all  this  Arabic  power  and  splendor  from  the  scene  of 
Em-opean  affairs.  But,  long  extinct  as  it  has  been,  the  dominion 
of  the  Arabs  in  Em*ope  was  no  mere  momentary  blaze.  It  lasted, 
with  little  diminution,  for  nearly  five  hundred  years,  a  period  as 
long  as  from  the  age  of  Chaucer  to  the  present  day,  and  abundantly 
sufficient  for  the  growth  of  a  body  of  literature  and  science  even 
1  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Rnm.  Emp.  c.  lii. 


70  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  the  wonderful  extent  that  has  been  described.  In  the  tenth 
century  Arabic  Spain  was  the  fountain-head  of  learning  in  Europe. 
Thither  students  were  accustomed  to  repair  from  every  other  coun- 
try to  study  in  the  Arabic  schools ;  and  many  of  the  teachers  in 
the  chief  towns  of  France  and  Italy  had  finished  their  education  in 
these  seminaries,  and  were  now  diffusing  among  their  countrymen 
the  new  knoAvledge  which  they  had  thence  acquired.  The  writings 
of  several  of  the  Greek  authors,  also,  and  especially  those  of  Aris- 
totle, had  been  made  generally  known  to  scholars  by  Latin  versions 
of  them  made  fi-om  the  Arabic. 

There  is  no  trace  of  this  new  literature  having  found  its  way  tc 
England  before  the  Nonnan  Conquest.  But  that  revolution  immedi- 
ately brought  it  in  its  train.  "The  Conqueror  himself,"  observes  a 
Avriter  who  has  illustrated  this  subject  with  a  profusion  of  curious 
learning,  "patronized  and  loved  letters.  He  filled  the  bishoprics 
and  abbacies  of  England  with  the  most  learned  of  his  countrjonen, 
who  had  been  educated  at  the  University  of  Paris,  at  that  time  the 
most  flourishing  school  in  Europe.  He  placed  Lanfranc,  abbot  of 
the  monastery  of  St.  Stephen  at  Caen,  in  the  see  of  Canterbury,  — 
an  eminent  master  of  logic,  the  subtleties  of  which  he  employed 
with  great  dexterity  in  a  famous  controversy  concerning  the  real 
presence.  Anselm,  an  acute  metaphysician  and  theologian,  his  im- 
mediate successor  in  the  same  see,  was  called  fi'om  the  government 
of  the  abbey  of  Bee,  in  Nomiandy.  Herman,  a  Norman,  bishop 
of  Salislmr}^  founded  a  noble  library  in  the  ancient  cathedral  of 
that  see.  Many  of  the  Norman  prelates  prefen-ed  in  England  by 
the  Conqueror  were  polite  scholars.  Godfrey,  prior  of  St.  Swithin's 
at  Winchester,  a  native  of  Cambray,  was  an  elegant  Latin  epigram- 
matist, and  wrote  with  tlie  smartness  and  ease  of  Martial :  a  cir- 
cumstance which,  by  the  way,  shows  that  the  literatiu'e  of  the 
monks  at  this  period  Avas  of  a  more  liberal  cast  than  that  which  we 
nommonly  annex  to  their  character  and  profession."  ^  Geoffrey, 
ilso,  another  learned  Norman,  came  over  from  the  University  of 
Paris,  and  established  a  school  at  Dunstable,  where,  according  to 
Matthew  Paris,  he  composed  a  play,  called  the  play  of  St.  Catha- 
)-ine,  which  was  acted  by  his  scholars,  dressed  characteristically  in 
copes  borrowed  from  the  sacrist  of  the  neighboring  abbey  of  St. 
Albans,  of  which  Geoffrey  afterwards  became  abbot.     "  The  king 

1  Warton's  Dissertation  on  Introduction  of  Learning  into  England,  prefixed  to 
Ili.story  of  Engiisli  Poetry,  p.  cxii.  (edit,  of  1840.) 


ARABIC  AND   OTHER  NEW   LEARNING.  71 

himself,"  Warton  continues,  "  gave  no  small  countenance  to  the 
clergy,  in  sending  his  son  Henry  Beauclerc  to  the  abbey  of  Abing- 
don, where  he  was  initiated  in  the  sciences  under  the  care  of  the 
abbot  Grimbald,  and  Faritius,  a  physician  of  Oxford.  Robert 
d'Oilly,  constable  of  Oxford  Castle,  was  ordered  to  pay  for  the  board 
of  the  young  prince  in  the  convent,  which  the  king  himself  fi-e- 
quently  visited.  Nor  was  William  wanting  in  giving  ample  rev- 
enues to  learning.  He  founded  the  magnificent  abbeys  of  Battle 
and  Selby,  with  other  smaller  convents.  His  nobles  and  their  suc- 
cessors cooperated  with  this  liberal  spirit  in  erecting  many  monaste- 
ries. Herbert  de  Losinga,  a  monk  of  Normandy,  bishop  of  Thet- 
ford  in  Norfolk,  instituted  and  endowed  with  large  possessions  a 
Benedictine  abbey  at  Norwich,  consisting  of  sixty  monks.  To  men- 
tion no  more  instances,  such  great  institutions  of  persons  dechcated 
to  rehgious  and  literary  leisure,  while  they  diffused  an  air  of  civil- 
ity, and  softened  the  manners  of  the  people  in  their  respective 
circles,  must  have  affoi"ded  powerful  incentives  to  studious  pursuits, 
and  have  consequently  added  no  small  degree  of  stabihty  to  the 
interests  of  learning."  ^ 

To  this  it  may  be  added,  that  most  of  the  successors  of  the  Con- 
queror continued  to  show  tlie  same  regard  for  learning  of  which  he 
had  set  the  example.  Nearly  all  of  them  had  themselves  received 
a  learned  education.  Besides  Henry  Beauclerc,  Henry  IL,  whose 
father  Geoffrey  Plantagenet,  Earl  of  Anjou,  was  famous  for  his 
hteraiy  acquirements,  had  been  carefully  educated  under  the  super- 
intendence of  his  admirable  uncle,  the  Earl  of  Gloucester ;  and  he 
appears  to  have  taken  care  that  his  children  should  not  want  the 
advantages  he  had  himself  enjoyed ;  for  at  least  the  three  eldest, 
Henry,  Geoffi-ey,  and  Richard,  are  all  noted  for  their  literary  as 
well  as  their  other  accomplishments. 

What  learning  existed,  however,  was  still  for  the  most  part  con- 
fined to  the  clergy.  Even  the  nobility  —  although  it  cannot  be 
supposed  that  they  were  left  altogether  without  literary  instruction 
—  appear  to  have  been  very  rarely  initiated  in  any  of  those  branches 
which  were  considered  as  properly  constituting  the  scholarship  of 
the  times.  The  famihar  knowledge  of  the  Latin  language  in  par- 
ticular, which  was  then  the  key  to  all  other  erudition,  seems  to 
have  been  almost  exclusively  confined  to  churchmen,  and  to  those 

1  Ibid.  Some  inaccuracies  in  Warton's  account  of  Geoffrey  and  his  play  are  cor 
»-ected  from  a  note  by  Mr.  Douce. 


72  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

few  of  the  laity  wlio  embraced  the  profession  of  schoolmasters,  as 
some,  at  least  on  the  Continent,  were  now  wont  to  do.  The  con- 
temporary writer  of  a  Life  of  Becket  relates,  that  when  Henry  II., 
in  1164,  sent  an  embassy  to  the  Pope,  in  which  the  Earl  of  Arun- 
del and  three  other  noblemen  were  associated  with  an  archbishop, 
four  bishops,  and  three  of  the  royal  chaplains,  four  of  the  church- 
men, at  the  audience  to  which  they  were  admitted,  first  dehv- 
ered  themselves  in  as  many  Latin  harangues  ;  and  then  the  Earl  of 
Ai-undel  stood  up,  and  made  a  speech  in  Enghsh,  which  he  began 
with  the  words,  "  We,  Avho  are  illiterate  laymen,  do  not  understand 
one  word  of  what  the  bishops  have  said  to  your  holiness." 

The  notion  that  learning  properly  belonged  exclusively  to  the 
clerg}',  and  that  it  was  a  possession  in  Avhich  the  laity  were  unwor- 
thy to  participate,  was  in  some  degi-ee  the  common  belief  of  the  age, 
and  by  the  learned  themselves  was  almost  universally  held  as  an 
article  of  faith  that  admitted  of  no  dispute.  Nothing  can  be  more 
strongly  mai'ked  than  the  tone  of  contempt  Avhich  is  expressed  for 
the  mass  of  the  community,  the  unlearned  vulgar,  by  the  scholars 
of  this  period :  in  their  correspondence  with  one  another  especially, 
they  seem  to  look  upon  all  beyond  their  own  small  circle  as  beings 
of  an  inferior  species.  This  pride  of  theirs,  however,  worked  ben- 
eficially upon  the  whole :  'in  the  first  place,  it  was  in  great  part 
merely  a  projjcr  estimation  of  the  advantages  of  knowledge  over 
ignorance  ;  and,  secondly,  it  helped  to  make  the  man  of  the  pen  a 
match  for  him  of  the  sword, — the  natural  liberator  of  the  human 
race  for  its  natural  oppressor.  At  the  same  time,  it  intimates  very 
forcibly  at  once  the  comparative  rarity  of  the  highly  prized  distinc- 
tion, and  the  depth  of  the  darkness  that  still  reigned  far  and  vnde 
around  the  few  scattered  pouits  of  lio-ht. 


SCHOOLS   AND   UNIVERSITIES. 

Schools  and  otlier  seminaries  of  learning,  however,  were  greatly 
muhiplird  ill  tills  age,  and  were  also  elevated  in  their  character,  in 
En-lnnd  as  well  as  elsewhere.  Both  Archbishop  Lanfranc  and  his 
Kncccssor  A nsehn  exerted  themselves  with  great  zeal  in  establish- 
ing ]iroper  schools  in  connection  with  the  cathedrals  and  monaste- 


SCHOOLS   AND   UNIVERSITIES.  7fl 

ries  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom ;  and  the  object  was  one  which  was 
also  patronized  and  promoted  by  the  general  voice  of  the  Church. 
In  1179  it  was  ordered  by  the  third  general  council  of  Lateran, 
that  in  every  cathedral  there  should  be  appointed  ajid  maintained 
a  head  teacher,  or  scholastic,  as  was  the  title  given  to  him,  who, 
besides  keeping  a  school  of  his  own,  should  have  authority  over  all 
the  other  schoolmasters  of  the  diocese,  and  the  sole  rio-ht  of  erant- 
ing  licenses,  without  which  no  one  should  be  entitled  to  teach.  In 
former  times  the  bishop  himself  had  frequently  undertaken  the 
office  of  scholastic  of  the  diocese  ;  but  its  duties  were  rarely 
efficiently  performed  under  that  arrangement,  and  at  length  they 
seem  to  have  come  to  be  generally  altogether  neglected.  After 
the  custom  was  introduced  of  maintainino-  it  as  a  distinct  office,  it 
was  filled  in  many  cases  by  the  most  learned  persons  of  the  time. 
And  besides  these  cathedral  schools  there  were  others  established 
in  all  the  religious  houses,  manj^  of  which  were  also  of  high  reputa- 
tion. It  is  reckoned  that  of  religious  houses  of  all  kinds  there 
were  foimded  in  England  no  fewer  than  five  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  between  the  Conquest  and  the  death  of  King  John  ;  and, 
besides  these,  there  still  existed  many  others  that  had  been  founded 
in  earlier  times.  All  these  cathedral  and  conventual  schools,  how- 
ever, appear  to  have  been  intended  exclusively  for  the  instruction 
of  persons  proposing  to  make  the  Church  their  profession.  But 
mention  is  also  made  of  others  established  both  in  many  of  the 
principal  cities  and  even  in  the  villages,  which  would  seem  to  have 
been  open  to  the  community  at  large  ;  for  it  may  be  presumed  that 
the  laity,  though  generally  excluded  from  the  benefits  of  a  learned 
education,  were  not  left  wholly  without  the  means  of  obtaining 
some  elementary  instruction.  Some  of  these  city  schools,  how- 
ever, were  eminent  as  institutes  of  the  highest  departments  of 
learning.  One  in  particular  is  mentioned  in  the  History  ascribed 
to  Matthew  Paris  as  established  in  the  town  of  St.  Albans,  which 
was  presided  over  by  MatthcAv,  a  physician,  who  had  been  educated 
at  the  famous  school  of  Salerno,  in  Italy,  and  by  his  nephew, 
Garinus,  who  was  eminent  for  his  knowledge  of  the  civil  and  canon 
laws,  and  where  we  may  therefore  suppose  instructions  were  given 
both  in  law  and  in  medicine.  According  to  the  account  of  London 
by  William  Stephanides,  or  Fitz-Stephen,  written  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  II.,  there  were  then  three  of  these  schools  of  a  higher  order 
established  in  London,  besides  sevei'al  others  that  were  occasionally 

VOL.  I.  10 


74  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

opened  bj  distinguished  teachers.  The  London  schools,  however, 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  academies  of  science  and  the  higher 
learning,  like  that  of  St.  Albans :  Fitz-Stephen's  description  would 
rather  lead  us  to  infer  that,  although  they  were  attended  by  pupils 
of  ditierent  ages  and  degrees  of  proficiency,  they  were  merely 
schools  of  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  dialectics.  "  On  holidays,"  he 
says,  "  it  is  usual  for  these  schools  to  hold  public  assemblies  in  the 
chm-ches,  in  which  the  scholars  engage  in  demonstrative  or  logical 
disputations,  some  using  enthymems,  and  others  perfect  syllogisms  ; 
some  aiming  at  nothing  but  to  gain  the  victory,  and  make  an  osten- 
tatious display  of  their  acuteness,  while  others  have  the  investiga- 
tion of  truth  in  view.  Artful  sophists  on  these  occasions  acquire 
great  applause  ;  some  by  a  prodigious  inundation  and  flow  of  words, 
others  by  their  specious  but  fallacious  arginnents.  After  the  dispu- 
tations other  scholars  deliver  rhetorical  declamations,  in  which  they 
observe  all  the  rvdes  of  art,  and  neglect  no  topic  of  persuasion. 
Even  the  younger  boys  m  the  different  schools  contend  against 
each  other,  in  verse,  aljout  the  principles  of  grammar,  and  the  pret- 
erites and  suj)ines  of  verbs." 

The  twelfth  century  may  be  considered  as  properly  the  age  of 
the  institution  of  Avhat  we  now  call  Universities  in  Europe,  though 
many  of  the  establishments  that  then  assumed  the  regular  fonn  of 
universities  had  undoubtedly  existed  long  before  as  schools  or  studia. 
This  was  the  case  with  the  oldest  of  the  European  universities, 
with  Bologna  and  Paris,  and  also,  in  all  probability,  with  Oxford 
and  Cambridge.  But  it  may  be  questioned  if  even  Bologna,  the 
mother  of  all  the  rest,  was  entitled  by  any  organization  or  constitu- 
tion it  had  received  to  take  a  higher  name  than  a  school  or  studium 
before  the  latter  part  of  this  century.  It  is  admitted  that  it  was 
not  till  about  the  year  1200  that  the  school  out  of  Avhich  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  arose  had  come  to  subsist  as  an  incorporation, 
divided  into  nations,  and  presided  over  by  a  rector.^  The  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford,  properly  so  called,  is  probably  of  nearly  the  same 
antiquity.  It  seems  to  have  been  patronized  and  fostered  by 
Richard  I.,  as  that  of  Paris  was  by  his  great  rival,  Philip  Augustus. 
Both  Oxford  and  Cambridge  had  undoubtedly  been  eminent  seats 
of  learning  long  before  this  time,  as  London,  St.  Albans,  and  othei 
cities  had  also  been  ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  either  the  one 
Dr  the  other  had  at  an  earlier  date  become  anything  more  than  a 
1  See  Crevier,  Hist,  de  I'Univ.  de  Paris,  i.  255. 


SCHOOLS   AND  UNIVERSITIES.  75 

great  school,  or  even  that  it  was  distinguished  by  any  assigned  rank 
or  privileges  above  the  other  great  schools  of  the  Idngdoni.  In  the 
reign  of  Richard  I.  we  find  the  University  of  Oxford  recognized  as 
an  establishment  of  the  same  kind  with  the  University  of  Paris, 
and  as  the  rival  of  that  seminary. 

We  have  the  following  account  of  what  is  commonly  deemed  the 
origin  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  in  the  continuation  of  the 
history  of  Ingulphus,  attributed  to  Peter  of  Blois,  under  the  year 
1109  :  —  "  Joffi-id,  abbot  of  Croyland,  sent  to  his  manor  of  Cot- 
tenham,  near  Cambridge,  Master  Gislebert,  his  fellow-monk,  and 
professor  of  theology,  with  three  other  monks  who  had  followed 
hun  into  England  ;  who,  being  very  well  instructed  in  philosophical 
theorems  and  other  primitive  sciences,  went  every  day  to  Cam- 
bridge, and,  having  hired  a  certain  public  barn,  taught  the  sciences 
openly,  and  in  a  little  time  collected  a  great  concourse  of  scholars ; 
for,  in  the  very  second  year  after  their  arrival,  the  number  of  their 
scholars  from  the  town  and  country  increased  so  much  that  there 
was  no  house,  barn,  nor  church  capable  of  containing  them.  For 
this  reason  they  separated  into  different  parts  of  the  town,  and, 
imitating  the  plan  of  the  Sttidium  of  Orleans,  brother  Odo,  who 
was  eminent  as  a  grammarian  and  satirical  poet,  read  grammar, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  Priscian  and  of  his  commentator 
Remigius,  to  the  boys  and  younger  students,  that  were  assigned  to 
hun,  early  in  the  morning.  At  one  o'clock,  brother  Terricus,  a 
most  acute  sophist,  read  the  Logic  of  Aristotle,  according  to  the 
Introductions  and  Commentaries  of  Porphyry  and  Averroes,^  to 
those  who  were  further  advanced.  At  three,  brother  William 
read  lectures  on  Tully's  Rhetoric  and  Quintilian's  Institutions. 
But  Master  Gislebert,  being  ignorant  of  the  English,  but  very  ex- 
pert in  the  Latin  and  French  languages,  preached  in  the  several 
chm'ches  to  the  people  on  Sundays  and  holidays."^  The  history 
in  which  this  passage  occurs  is,  as  will  presently  be  shown,  as 
apocryphal  as  that  of  which  it  professes  to  be  the  continuation ; 
but  even  if  we  waive  the  question  of  its  authenticity,  there  is  here 
no  hint  of  any  sort  of  incorporation  or  pubHc  establishment  whatever; 

1  The  works  of  Averroes,  however,  who  died  in  1198,  were  certainly  not  in  ex- 
istence at  the  time  here  referred  to.  Either  Peter  of  Blois  must  have  been  igno- 
rant of  this,  or  —  if  lie  was  really  the  author  of  the  statement  —  the  name  must 
have  been  the  insertion  of  some  later  transcriber  of  his  text. 

'^  Petri  Blesensis  Continuatio  ad  Historiam  Ingulphi  ;  in  Rerum  Anglicaruic 
Script.  Vet. :  Oxon.  1G84,  p.  114.  The  translation  is  that  given  by  Henry  in  his 
History  of  Britain. 


76  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND    LANGUAGE. 

the  desciiption  is  merely  that  of  a  school  set  on  foot  and  conducted 
by  an  association  of  private  individuals.  And  even  tliis  private 
school  would  seem  to  have  been  first  opened  only  in  the  year  1109, 
although  there  may  possibly  have  been  other  schools  taught  in  the 
place  before.  It  may  be  gathered  fi'om  what  is  added,  that  at  the 
time  Avhen  the  account,  if  it  was  written  by  Peter  of  Blois,  must 
have  been  drawn  up  (the  latter  part  of  the  same  century),  the 
school  founded  by  Gislebert  and  his  companions  had  attained  to 
great  celebrity  ;  but  there  is  notliing  to  lead  us  to  suppose  that  it 
had  even  then  become  more  than  a  very  distinguished  school. 
"  From  this  little  fountain,"  he  says,  "  which  hath  swelled  into  a 
great  river,  we  now  behold  the  city  of  God  made  glad,  and  aJl 
England  rendered  fruitftd,  by  many  teachers  and  doctors  issuing 
from  Cambridge,  after  the  likeness  of  the  holy  Paradise." 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  rising  reputation  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  the  most  ambitious  of  the  English  students  continued 
to  resort  for  part  of  their  education  to  the  more  distinguished 
foreign  schools  during  the  whole  of  the  twelfth  century.  Thus,  it 
is  recorded  that  several  volumes  of  tlie  Arabian  philosophy  were 
brought  into  England  by  Daniel  Merlac,  who,  in  the  year  1185, 
had  gone  to  Toledo  to  study  mathematics.  Salerno  was  still  the 
chief  school  of  medicine,  and  Bologna  of  law,  although  Oxford 
was  also  becoming  famous  for  the  latter  study.  But,  as  a  place  of 
general  instruction,  the  University  of  Paris  stood  at  the  head  of 
all  others.  Paris  was  then  wont  to  be  styled,  by  way  of  preemi- 
nence, the  City  of  Letters.  So  many  Englishmen,  or,  to  speak 
more  strictly,  subjects  of  the  English  crown,  were  constantly  found 
among  the  students  at  this  great  seminary,  that  they  formed  one 
of  the  four  nations  into  which  the  members  of  the  university  were 
divided.  The  English  students  are  described  by  their  countiy- 
man,  the  poet  Nigellus  Wireker,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth 
century,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  that  they  were  ah'eady  noted 
for  that  spirit  of  display  and  expense  which  still  makes  so  promi- 
nent a  part  of  our  contmental  reputation :  — 

Moribus  egregii,  verbo  vultuque  venusti, 

Ingenio  pollent,  consilioque  vigent ; 
Dona  pluunt  populis,  et  detestantur  avaros, 

Fercuhi  inuUiplicant,  et  sine  lege  bibunt.^ 

1  These  verses  are  quoted  by  A.  Wood,  Antiq.  Oxon.,  p.  55.  The  poem  in  wliich 
they  occur  is  entitled  Spiculum  Stnltorum,  or  sometimes  Brunelhis  (from  its  principa" 
personage).     It  has  been  repeatedly  printed. 


SCHOOLS   AND   UNIVERSITIES.  77 

Of  noble  manners,  gracious  look  and  speech, 
Strong  sense,  with  genius  brightened,  shines  in  each. 
Their  free  hand  still  rains  largess  ;  when  they  dine 
Course  follows  course,  in  rivers  flows  the  wine. 

Among  the  students  at  the  University  of  Paris  in  the  twelfth 
century  are  to  be  found  nearly  all  the  most  distinguished  namea 
among  the  learned  of  every  country.  One  of  the  teachers,  the 
celebrated  Abelard,  is  said  to  have  alone  had  as  pupils  twenty 
persons  who  afterwards  became  cardinals,  and  more  than  iifty  who 
rose  to  be  bishops  and  archbishops.  Thomas  a  Becket  received 
part  of  his  education  here.  Several  of  the  most  eminent  teachers 
were  Englishmen.  Among  these  may  be  particularly  mentioned 
Robert  of  Melun  (so  called  from  having  first  taught  in  that  city), 
and  Robert  White,  or  Pullus,  as  he  is  called  in  liatin.  Robert  of 
Melun,  who  aftei'wards  became  bishop  of  Hereford,  distinguished 
himself  by  the  zeal  and  ability  with  which  he  opposed  the  novel 
views  which  the  rising  sect  of  the  Nominalists  were  then  introduc- 
ing both  into  philosophy  and  theology.  He  is  the  author  of  sev- 
eral theological  treatises,  none  of  which,  however,  have  been 
printed.  Robert  White,  after  teaching  some  years  at  Paris, 
Avhere  he  was  attended  by  crowded  audiences,  was  induced  to  re- 
turn to  his  own  country,  where  he  is  said  to  have  read  lectures  on 
theology  at  Oxford  for  five  years,  which  greatly  contributed  to 
spread  the  renown  of  that  rising  seminary.  After  having  declined 
a  bishopric  oflered  to  him  by  Henry  L,  he  went  to  reside  at  Rome 
in  1143,  on  the  invitation  of  Celestine  II.,  and  was  soon  after  made 
a  cardinal  and  chancellor  of  the  holy  see.  One  work  written  by 
him  has  been  printed,  a  summary  of  theology,  under  the  then 
common  title  of  The  Book  of  Sentences,  which  has  the  reputation 
of  being  distinguished  by  the  superior  correctness  of  its  style  and 
the  lucidness  of  its  method. 

Another  celebrated  name  amono;  the  Eno;lishmen  who  are  re- 
corded  to  have  studied  at  Paris  in  those  days  is  that  of  Nicolas 
Breakspear,  who  afterwards  became  pope  by  the  title  of  Adrian 
IV.  But,  above  all  others,  John  of  Salisbury  deserves  to  be  here 
mentioned.  It  is  in  his  writings  that  we  find  the  most  complete 
account  that  has  reached  us  not  only  of  the  mode  of  study  fol- 
lowed at  Paris,  but  of  the  entire  learning  of  the  age. 


78  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 


RISE  OF   THE   SCHOLASTIC   PHILOSOPHY. 

At  this  time  those  branches  of  literary  and  scientific  knowl- 
edge which  were  specially  denominated  the  arts  were  considered 
as  divided  into  tw^o  great  classes,  —  the  first  or  more  elementally 
of  which,  comprehending  Grammar,  Rhetoric,  and  Logic,  was 
called  the  Trivium  ;  the  second,  comprehending  Music,  Arith- 
metic, Geometry,  and  Astronomy,  the  Quadrivimn.  The  seven 
arts,  so  classified,  used  to  be  thus  enumerated  in  a  Latin  hexam- 
eter :  — 

Lingua,  Tropus,  Ratio,  Numerus,  Tonus,  Angulu.s,  Astra ; 

or,  with  definitions  subjoined,  in  two  still  more  singularly  con- 
structed verses,  — 

Gram,  loquitur,  Dia.  vera  docet,  Rhet.  verba  colorat, 
Mas.  cadit,  Ar.  numeral,  Geo.  ponderat,  Ast.  colit  astra. 

John  of  Salisbury  speaks  of  this  system  of  the  sciences  as  an 
ancient  one  in  his  day.  "  The  Trivium  and  Qnadrivium,"  he 
says,  in  his  w^ork  entitled  Metalogicus,  "were  so  much  admired 
by  our  ancestors  in  fonner  ages,  that  they  imagined  they  com- 
prehended all  wisdom  and  learning,  and  Avere  sufficient  for  the 
solution  of  all  questions  and  the  removing  of  all  difficulties  ;  for 
whoever  understood  the  Trivium  could  explain  all  manner  of 
books  w^ithout  a  teacher ;  but  he  who  Avas  farther  advanced,  and 
was  master  also  of  the  Quadriviimi,  could  answer  all  questions 
and  mifold  all  the  secrets  of  nature."  The  present  age,  however, 
had  outgrown  the  simplicity  of  tliis  arrangement  ;  and  various 
new  studies  had  been  added  to  the  ancient  seven,  as  necessary  to 
complete  the  circle  of  the  sciences  and  the  curricvilum  of  a  liberal 
education. 

It  Avas  now,  in  particular,  that  Theology  first  came  to  be  ranked 
as  a  science.  This  w%as  the  age  of  St.  Bernard,  the  last  of  the 
Fathers,  and  of  Peter  Lombard,  the  first  of  the  Schoolmen. 
The  distinction  between  these  tAVO  classes  of  Avriters  is,  that  the 
latter  do,  nnd  the  former  do  not,  treat  their  subject  in  a  system- 
atizing spirit.  The  change  Avas  the  consequence  of  the  cultiva 
tion  of  the  Aristott'lian  logic  and  metaphysics.     When  these  stud- 


RISE   OF  THE    SCHOLASTIC  PHILOSOPHY.  79 

ies  were  first  introduced  into  the  schools  of  the  West,  they  were 
wholly  unconnected  with  theology.  But,  especially  at  a  time  when 
all  the  learned  were  churchmen,  it  was  impossible  that  the  great 
instrument  of  thought  and  reasoning  could  long  remain  unapplied 
to  the  most  important  of  all  the  subjects  of  thought,  — the  subject 
of  religion.  It  has  already  been  remarked  that  John  Erigena  and 
other  Irish  divines  introduced  philosophy  and  metaphysics  into  the 
discussion  of  questions  of  religion  as  early  as  the  ninth  century ; 
and  they  are  consequently  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  having  first 
set  the  example  of  the  method  afterwards  pursued  by  the  school- 
men. But,  although  the  influence  of  their  writings  may  probably 
be  traced  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  introduction  of  the  scholas- 
tic system,  and  also,  afterwards,  perhaps,  in  modifying  its  spirit, 
that  system  was  derived  immediately,  in  the  shape  in  which  it  ap- 
peared in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  from  another  source. 
Erigena  was  a  Platonist :  the  spirit  of  his  philosophy  was  that  of 
the  school  of  Alexandria.  But  the  first  schoolmen,  properly  so 
called,  were  Aristotelians :  they  drew  their  logic  and  metaphysics 
originally  fi'om  the  Latin  translations  of  the  works  of  Aristotle 
made  ft'om  the  Arabic.  And  they  may  also  have  been  indebted 
for  some  of  their  views  to  the  commentaries  of  the  Arabic  doctors. 
But,  whether  they  took  their  method  of  philosophy  entirely  fi'om 
the  ancient  heathen  sage,  or  in  part  fi-om  his  modern  Mahomedan 
interpreters  and  illustrators,  it  could  in  neither  case  have  had  at 
first  any  necessary  or  natural  alliance  with  Christianity,  Yet  it 
very  soon,  as  we  have  said,  formed  this  alliance.  Both  Lanfranc 
and  Anselm,  although  not  commonly  reckoned  among  the  school- 
men, were  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  new  learning,  and  it  is 
infused  throughout  their  theological  writings.  Abelard  soon  after, 
before  he  was  yet  a  churchman,  may  almost  be  considered  to  have 
wielded  it  as  a  weapon  of  scepticism.  Even  so  used,  however,  re- 
ligion was  still  the  subject  to  which  it  was  applied.  At  last  came 
Peter  Lombard,  who,  by  the  publication,  about  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century,  of  his  celebrated  Four  Books  of  Sentences,  prop- 
erly founded  the  system  of  Avhat  is  called  the  Scholastic  Theol- 
ogy. The  schoolmen,  from  the  Master  of  the  Sentences,  as  Lom- 
bard was  designated,  down  to  Francis  Suarez,  who  died  after  the 
commencement  of  the  seventeenth  century,  were  all  theologians. 
Although,  however,  religious  speculation  was  the  field  of  thought 
upon  which  the  spirit  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy  chiefly  ex 


80  i^JN(:riJSH  LITER ATUEE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

pended  itself,  tliere  was  scarcely  any  one  of  the  arts  or  sciences 
upon  which  it  did  not  in  some  degree  seize.  The  scholastic  logic 
became  the  universal  instrument  of  thought  and  stvidy  :  every 
branch  of  human  learning  was  attempted  to  be  pursued  by  its 
assistance  ;  and  most  branches  were  more  or  less  affected  by  its 
influence  in  regard  to  the  forms  which  they  assumed. 


JOHN   OF   SALISBURY.  -  PETER   OF   BLOIS. 

John  of  Salisbuxy  went  to  complete  his  education  at  Paris  in 
the  year  1136.  "  When  I  beheld,"  he  writes  in  a  letter  to  his 
friend  Becket,  "  the  reverence  paid  to  the  clergy,  the  majesty  and 
glory  of  the  whole  Church,  and  the  various  occupations  of  those 
who  applied  themselves  to  philosophy  in  that  city,  it  raised 
my  admiration  as  if  I  had  seen  the  ladder  of  Jacob,  the  top  of 
which  reached  to  Heaven,  while  the  steps  were  crowded  with 
angels  ascending  and  descending."  The  first  master  whose  lec- 
tm-es  he  attended  was  the  renowned  Abelard,  still,  after  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  his  life,  teaching  with  undiminished  glory,  in 
the  midst  of  a  vast  confluence  of  admiring  disciples,  on  the  ]\Iount 
of  St.  Genevieve.  "  I  drank  in,"  says  his  English  pupil,  "  with 
incredible  avidity,  every  Avord  that  fell  from  his  lips  ;  but  he  soon, 
to  my  infinite  regret,  retired."  Abelard  lived  only  a  few  years 
after  this  date,  which  he  spent  in  devotion  and  entire  seclusion 
from  the  world.  John  of  Salisbury  then  studied  dialectics  for  two 
years  under  two  other  masters,  one  of  whom  was  his  countryman, 
Robert  de  Melun,  mentioned  above.  After  this  he  returned  to  the 
study  of  grammar  and  rhetoric,  which  he  pursued  for  three  years 
under  William  de  Conches,  of  whose  method  of  teaching  he  has 
left  a  particular  account.  It  a])pears  to  have  embraced  a  critical 
exi)nsiti()n  both  of  the  style  and  the  matter  of  the  writers  com- 
mented upon,  and  to  have  been  well  calculated  to  nourish  both  the 
understanding  and  the  taste.  After  this  he  spent  seven  years 
under  other  masters,  partly  in  the  further  prosecution  of  his  ac- 
quaintance with  the  writers  of  antiquity  and  the  practice  of  Latin 
composition,  partly  in  the  study  of  the  mathematics  and  theology. 
The  entire  course  thus  occupied  twelve  years ;  but  some,  it  would 


JOHN   OF   SALISBURY.  —  PETER   OF   BLOIS.  8l 

appear,  devoted  the  whole  of  this  time  to  the  study  of  dialectics, 
or  logic,  alone.  John  of  Salisbury's  treatise  entitled  Metalooicus 
is  intended  princi])ally  to  expose  the  absurdity  and  injurious  effects 
of  this  exclusive  devotion  to  the  art  of  wrangling ;  and,  although  it 
must  be  considered  as  written  with  some  degree  of  satirical  license, 
the  representation  which  it  gives  of  the  state  of  things  produced 
by  the  new  spirit  that  had  gone  abroad  over  the  realms  of  learning 
is  very  curious  and  interesting.  The  turn  of  the  writer's  own 
genius  was  decidedly  to  the  rhetorical  rather  than  the  metaphysi- 
cal, and  he  was  not  very  well  qualified,  perhaps,  to  perceive  certain 
of  the  uses  or  recommendations  of  the  study  against  which  he 
directs  his  attack  ;  but  the  extravagances  of  its  devotees,  it  may  be 
admitted,  fairly  exposed  them  to  his  ridicule  and  castigation.  "  I 
wish,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "to  behold  the  light  of  tnith,  which 
these  logicians  say  is  only  revealed  to  them.  I  approach  them,  — 
I  beseech  them  to  instruct  me,  that,  if  possible,  I  may  become  as 
wise  as  one  of  them.  They  consent,  —  they  promise  great  things, 
—  and  at  first  they  command  me  to  observe  a  Pythagorean  silence, 
that^I  may  be  admitted  into  all  the  secrets  of  wisdom  which  they 
pretend  are  in  their  possession.  But  by  and  by  they  permit,  and 
even  command  me,  to  prattle  and  quibble  with  them.  This  they 
call  disputing;  this  they  say  is  logic;  but  I  am  no  wiser."  He 
accuses  them  of  wasting  their  ingenuity  in  the  discussion  of  such 
puerile  puzzles  as  whether  a  person  in  buying  a  whole  cloak  also 
bouo-ht  the  cowl ;  or  whether,  when  a  hog  was  carried  to  market 
with  a  rope  tied  about  its  neck,  and  held  at  the  other  end  by  a 
man,  the  hog  was  really  carried  to  market  by  the  man  or  by  the 
rope.  It  must  be  confessed  that,  if  their  logic  had  been  worth 
much,  it  ought  to  have  made  short  work  with  these  questions,  sup- 
posing them  to  be  worth  settling  at  all.  Our  author  adds,  however, 
that  they  were  declared  to  be  questions  which  could  not  be  solved,, 
the  aro-uments  on  both  sides  exactly  balancing  each  other.  But 
his  quarrel  with  the  dialecticians  was  chiefly  on  the  ground  of  the 
disreo-ard  and  aversion  they  manifested,  in  their  method  of  exer- 
cisino-  the  intellectual  powers,  to  all  polite  literature,  to  all  that  was 
merely  graceful  and  ornamental.  And  there  can  be  no  question 
that  the  ascendancy  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  was  fatal  for  the 
time  to  the  cultivation  of  ]iolite  literature  in  Europe.  So  long  as 
it  reigned  supreme  in  the  schools,  learning  was  wholly  divorced 
from  taste.     The  useful  utterly  rejected  all  connection  with  the 

VOL.   I.  11 


82  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

beautifii].  Tlie  head  looked  down  with  contempt  iipon  the  heart. 
Poetry  ^md  fiction,  and  whatever  else  belonged  to  the  imao-inative 
part  of  our  natui-e,  were  abandoned  altogether  to  the  unlearned, 
to  the  makers  of  songs  and  lays  for  the  people.  It  was  probably 
fortunate  for  poetry,  and  the  kindred  forms  of  literature,  in  the 
end,  that  they  were  thus  left  solely  to  the  popular  cultivation  for  a 
time  :  they  drew  nourishment  and  ncAv  life  from  the  new  soil  into 
which  they  were  transplanted ;  and  their  produce  has  been  the 
richer  and  the  racier  for  it  ever  since.  The  revival  of  polite  liter- 
ature probably  came  at  a  better  time  in  the  fifteenth  than  if  it  had 
come  in  the  twelfth  century.  Yet  it  was  not  to  be  expected,  that, 
when  it  was  threatened  with  blio-ht  and  extinction  at  the  earlier 
era,  its  fi-iends  should  either  have  been  able  to  foresee  its  resurrec- 
tion two  or  three  centuries  later,  or  should  have  been  greatly  con- 
soled by  that  prospect  if  they  had. 

John  of  Salisbury's  chief  work  is  his  Polycraticon,  or,  as  he  ftir- 
ther  entitles  it,  A  Treatise  in  eight  books,  on  the  Frivolities  of 
Courtiers  and  the  Footsteps  of  Philosophers  (De  Nugis  Curialium 
et  Vestigiis  Philosophorum).  "  It  is,"  says  Warton,  "  an  extremely 
pleasant  miscellany,  replete  with  erudition,  and  a  judgment  of  men 
and  things  which  properly  belongs  to  a  more  sensible  and  reflecting 
period.  His  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  classics  appears  not 
only  fi'om  the  hap])y  facility  of  his  language,  but  from  the  many 
citations  of  the  purest  Roman  authors  with  which  his  woi-ks  are 
perpetually  interspersed."  •  He  also  wrote  Latin  verses  with  ex- 
treme elegance.  John  of  Salisbury  died  bishop  of  Chartres  in 
1182.  Peter  of  Blois  (or  Petrus  Blesensis),  a  native  of  the  town 
in,  France  fi'om  which  he  takes  his  name,  was  another  distinojuished 
cultivator  of  polite  literature  in  the  same  age.  Among  the  writ- 
ings he  has  left  us,  his  Letters  collected  by  himself  to  the  number 
of  134,  are  especially  interesting,  abounding  as  they  do  in  grapliic 
descriptions  of  the  manners  and  characters  of  the  time.  But 
neither  in  elegance  of  taste  and  style,  nor  in  general  literary 
accomplishment,  is  the  Frenchman  to  be  compared  with  his  Eng- 
lish contemporaiy. 

^  Introd.  of  Learning  into  Eng.  p.  cxx.  (ed.  1840). 


*.W  fingeles, 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  —  MATHEMATICS.  —  MEDICINE.  — 
LAW.  — BOOKS. 

The  classical  knowledge  of  this  period,  however,  was  almost  con- 
fined to  the  Roman  authors,  and  some  of  the  most  eminent  of  these 
were  as  yet  unstudied  and  unknown.  Even  John  of  Salisbury, 
thoiigh  a  few  Greek  words  are  to  be  found  in  his  compositions, 
seems  to  have  had  only  the  slightest  possible  acquaintance  with 
that  language.  Both  it  and  the  Hebrew,  nevertheless,  were 
known  to  Abelard  and  Eloisa  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  thei'e  were 
both  in  England  and  other  European  countries  a  few  students  of 
the  Oriental  tongues,  for  the  acquisition  of  which  inducements  and 
facilities  must  have  been  presented,  not  only  by  the  custom  of  re- 
sorting to  the  Arabic  colleges  in  Spain,  and  the  constant  intercourse 
with  the  East  kept  up  by  the  pilgrimages  and  the  crusades,  but 
also  by  the  numbers  of  learned  Jews  that  were  everywhere  to  be 
found.  In  England  the  Jews  had  schools  in  London,  York,  Lin- 
coln, Lynn,  Norwich,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  other  towns,  which 
appear  to  have  been  attended  by  Christians  as  well  as  by  those  of 
their  own  persuasion.  Some  of  these  seminaries,  indeed,  were 
rather  colleges  than  schools.  Besides  the  Hebrew  and  Arabic  Ian- 
guages,  arithmetic  and  medicine  are  mentioned  among  the  branches 
of  linowledge  that  were  taught  in  them  ;  and  the  masters  were 
generally  the  most  distinguished  of  the  rabbis.  In  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries,  the  age  of  Sarchi,  the  Kimchis,  Maimonides, 
and  other  distinguished  names,  rabbinical  learnino;  was  in  an  emi- 
nently  flourishing  state. 

There  is  no  certain  evidence  that  the  Arabic  numerals  were  yet 
known  in  Europe :  they  certainly  were  not  in  general  u5e.  Al- 
though the  Elements  of  Euclid  and  other  geometrical  works  had 
been  translated  into  Latin  from  the  Arabic,  the  mathematical 
sciences  appear  to  have  been  but  little  studied.  "  The  science  of 
demonstration,"  says  John  of  Salisbury,  in  his  Metalogicus,  "  is  of 
all  others  the  most  difficult,  and  alas !  is  almost  quite  neglected, 
except  by  a  very  few  who  apply  to  the  study  of  the  mathematics, 
and  particularly  of  geometry.  But  this  last  is  at  present  very  lit- 
tle attended  to  amongst  us,  and  is  only  studied  by  some  persons  in 
S^min,  Egypt,  and  Arabia,  for  the  sake  of  astronomy.  One  reason 
>f  this  is,  that  those  parts  of  the  works  of  Aristotle  that  relate  to 


84  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  demonstrative  sciences  are  so  ill  translated,  and  so  incorrectly 
transcribed,  that  we  meet  with  insurmountable  difficulties  in  everj 
chapter."  The  name  of  the  mathematics  at  this  time,  indeed,  wa8 
chiefly  given  to  the  science  of  astrology.  "  Mathematicians,"  says 
Peter  of  Blois,  "  are  those  who,  from  the  position  of  the  stars,  the 
aspect  of  the  firmament,  and  the  motions  of  the  planets,  discover 
things  that  are  to  come."  Astronomv,  however,  or  the  time  science 
of  the  stars,  which  was  zealously  cultivated  by  the  Arabs  in  the 
East  and  in  Spain,  seems  also  to  have  had  some  cultivators  among 
the  learned  of  Christian  Europe.  Latin  translations  existed  of 
several  Greek  and  Arabic  astronomical  works.  In  the  History 
attributed  to  Ingulphus,  is  the  following  curious  description  of  a 
sort  of  scheme  or  representation  of  the  planetary  system  called  the 
Nadir,  which  is  stated  to  have  been  destroyed  when  the  abbey  of 
Croyland  Avas  burnt  in  1091 :  "  We  then  lost  a  most  beautifiil  and 
precious  table,  flibi'icated  of  different  kinds  of  metals,  according  to 
the  variety  of  the  stars  and  heavenly  signs.  Saturn  was  of  copper, 
Jupiter  of  gold.  Mars  of  iron,  the  sun  of  latten,  Mercury  of  amber, 
Venus  of  tin,  the  Moon  of  silver.  The  eyes  were  charmed,  as 
well  as  the  mind  instructed,  by  beholding  the  colure  circles,  with 
the  zodiac  and  all  its  signs,  formed  with  wonderful  art,  of  metals 
and  precious  stones,  according  to  their  several  natures,  fonns, 
figures,  and  colors.  It  was  the  most  admired  and  celebrated  Nadir 
in  all  England."  These  last  words  would  seem  to  imply  that  such 
tables  were  then  not  uncommon.  This  one,  it  is  stated,  had  been 
presented  to  a  former  abbot  of  Croyland  by  a  king  of  France. 

John  of  Salisbury,  in  his  account  of  his  studies  at  Paris,  makes 
no  mention  either  of  medicine  or  of  law.  With  regard  to  the  for- 
mer, indeed,  he  elsewhere  expressly  tells  us  that  the  Parisians 
themselves  used  to  go  to  study  it  at  Salerno  and  Montpellier.  By 
the  beginning  of 'the  thirteenth  century,  however,  we  find  a  school 
of  medicine  established  at  Paris,  which  soon  became  very  cele- 
brated. Of  course  there  were,  at  an  earlier  date,  persons  who 
practised  the  medical  ai-t  in  that  city.  The  physicians  in  all  the 
countries  of  Europe  at  this  period  were  generally  churchmen. 
Many  of  the  Arabic  medical  works  were  early  translated  into 
Latin  ;  but  the  Parisian  professors  soon  began  to  publish  treatises 
on  the  art  of  their  own.  The  science  of  the  physicians  of  this 
age,  besides  comprehending  whatever  was  to  be  learned  respecting 
the  diagnostics  and  treatment  of  diseases  from  Hippocrates,  Galen, 


MEDICINE   AND   LAW.  85 

and  the  other  ancient  writers,  embraced  a  considerable  body  of 
botanical  and  chemical  knowledge.  Chemistiy  in  particular  the 
Arabs  had  carried  far  beyond  the  point  at  which  it  had  been  left  by 
the  ancients.  Of  anatomy  httle  could  as  yet  be  accurately  known, 
while  the  dissection  of  the  human  subject  was  not  practised.  Yet 
it  would  appear  that  physicians  and  surgeons  were  already  begin- 
ning to  be  distinguished  from  each  other.  Both  the  canon  and  civil 
laws  were  also  introduced  into  the  routine  of  study  at  the  Univei-- 
sity  of  Paris  soon  after  the  time  when  John  of  Salisbury  studied 
there.  The  canon  law  was  originally  considered  to  be  a  part  of 
theology,  and  only  took  the  form  of  a  separate  study  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  systematic  compilation  of  it  called  the  Decretum  of 
Gratian,  in  1151.  Gratian  was  a  monk  of  Bologna,  and  his  work, 
not  the  first  collection  of  the  kind,  but  the  most  complete  and  the 
best  arranged  that  had  yet  been  compiled,  was  immediately  intro- 
duced as  a  text-book  in  that  university.  It  may  be  regarded  as 
having  laid  the  foundation  of  the  science  of  the  canon  law,  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  system  of  the  scholastic  philosophy  was  founded 
by  Peter  Lombard's  Book  of  Sentences.  Regular  lecturers  upon  it 
very  soon  appeared  at  Orleans,  at  Paris,  at  Oxford,  and  all  the 
other  chief  seats  of  learning  in  western  Christendom ;  and  before 
the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  no  other  study  was  more  eagerly 
pursued,  or  attracted  greater  crowds  of  students,  than  that  of  the 
canon  law.  One  of  its  first  and  most  celebrated  teachers  at  Paris 
was  Girard  la  Pucelle,  an  Englishman,  who  afterwards  became 
bishop  of  Lichfield  and  Coventry.  Girard  taught  the  canon  law  in 
Paris  fi'om  1160  to  1177  ;  and,  in  consideration  of  his  distinguished 
merits  and  what  was  deemed  the  great  importance  of  his  instruc- 
tions, he  received  from  Pope  Alexander  III.  letters  exempting  him 
from  the  obligation  of  residing  on  his  preferments  in  England  while 
he  was  so  engaged ;  this  being,  it  is  said,  the  first  known  example 
of  such  a  privilege  being  granted  to  any  professor.  ^  The  same 
professors  w^ho  taught  the  canon  law  taught  also,  along  with  it,  the 
civil  law,  the  systematic  study  of  which,  likewise,  took  its  rise  in 
this  century,  and  at  the  University  of  Bologna,  where  the  Pandects 
of  Justinian  —  of  which  a  more  perfect  copy  than  had  before  been 
known  is  said  to  have  been  found  in  1137  at  Amalfi^ — were  arranged 

1  Crevier,  Hist,  de  TUniv.  de  Paris,  i.  244. 

2  "  The  discovery  of  the  Pandects  at  Amalfi,"  says  Gibbon,  "  is  first  noticed  (in 
1501)  by  Ludovicus  Bologninus,  on  the  faith  of  a  Pisan  Chronicle,  without  a  name 
or  date.     The  whole  story,  though  unknown  to  the  twelfth  century,  embellished  by 


86  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  first  lectured  upon  by  the  German  Irnerius,  —  the  Lamp  of  the 
Law,  as  he  was  called,  —  about  the  year  1150.  Both  the  canon 
and  the  civil  law,  however,  are  said  to  have  been  taught  a  few 
years  before  this  time  at  Oxford  by  Roger,  sumamed  the  Bachelor, 
a  monk  of  Bee,  in  Normandy.  The  study  was,  fi-om  the  first, 
vehemently  opposed  by  the  practitioners  of  the  common  law  ;  but, 
sustained  by  the  influence  of  the  Church,  and  eventually  also  fa- 
vored by  the  government,  it  rose  above  all  attempts  to  put  it  down- 
John  of  Salisbury  affirms  that,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  the  more  it 
was  persecuted  the  more  it  flourished.  Peter  of  Blois,  in  one  of 
his  letters,  gives  us  the  following  curious  account  of  the  ardor  with 
which  it  was  pursued  under  the  superintendence  of  Archbishop 
Theobald:  —  "In  the  house  of  my  master,  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, there  are  several  very  learned  men,  famous  for  their  knowl- 
edge of  law  and  politics,  who  spend  the  time  between  prayers  and 
dinner  in  lecturing,  disputing,  and  debating  causes.  To  us  all  the 
knotty  questions  of  the  kingdom  are  referred,  which  are  produced 
in  the  common  hall,  and  every  one  in  his  order,  having  first  pre- 
pared himself,  declares,  with  all  the  eloquence  and  acuteness  of 
which  he  is  capable,  but  without  wrangling,  what  is  wisest  and  safest 
to  be  done.  If  God  suggests  the  soundest  opinion  to  the  youngest 
amongst  us,  we  all  agree  to  it  without  envy  or  detraction."  ^ 

Stiady  in  every  department  must  have  been  still  greatly  impeded 
by  the  scarcity  and  high  price  of  books  ;  but  their  multiplication 
now  went  on  much  more  rapidly  than  it  had  formerly  done.  We 
have  already  noticed  the  immense  libraries  said  to  have  been  accu- 
mulated by  the  Arabs,  both  in  their  Oriental  and  European  seats  of 
empire.  No  collections  to  be  compared  with  these  existed  any- 
where in  Christian  Europe  ;  but,  of  the  numerous  monasteries  that 
were  planted  in  every  country,  few  were  without  libraries  of  greater 
or  less  extent.  A  convent  without  a  library,  it  used  to  be  prover- 
bially said,  was  like  a  castle  without  an  armory.  When  the  mon- 
astery of  Croyland  was  burnt  in  1091,  its  library,  according  to  In- 
gulphus,  consisted  of  900  volumes,  of  which  300  were  very  laj'ge. 
"  In  every  great  abbey,"  says  Warton,  "  there  was  an  apartment 
called  the  Scriptorium;  where  many  writers  were  constantly  busied 
in  transcribing  not  only  the  service-books  for  the  choir,  but  books 

ignorant  nffvs,  niirl  suspected  hv  rigrid  criticism,  is  not  however  destitute  of  much 
mternal  pr()b;il)ility." 

^  Ep.  vi.,  as  translated  in  Henry's  History  of  Britain. 


THE   LATIN   LANGUAGE:  87 

for  the  library.  The  Scriptorium  of  St.  Albans  abbey  was  built  by 
Abbot  Pauliii,  a  Norman,  who  ordered  many  volumes  to  be  writ- 
ten there,  about  the  year  1080.  Archbishop  Lanfranc  furnished 
the  copies.  Estates  were  often  granted  for  the  suppoit  of  the 
Scriptorium.  ...  I  find  some  of  the  classics  written  in  the 
Enghsh  monasteries  very  early.  Henry,  a  Benedictine  monk  of 
Hyde  Abbey,  near  Winchester,  transcribed  in  the  year  1178  Ter- 
ence, Boethius,  Suetonius,  and  Claudian.  Of  these  he  formed  one 
book,  illuminating  the  initials,  and  forming  the  brazen  bosses  of  the 
covers  with  his  own  hands."  Other  instances  of  the  same  kind 
are  added.  The  monks  were  much  accustomed  both  to  illuminate 
and  to  bind  books,  as  well  as  to  transcribe  them.  "  The  scarcity 
of  parchment,"  it  is  afterwards  observed,  "  undoubtedly  prevented 
the  transcription  of  many  other  books  in  these  societies.  About 
the  year  1120,  one  Master  Hugh,  being  appointed  by  the  convent 
of  St.  Edmondsbury,  in  Suffolk,  to  write  and  illuminate  a  grand 
copy  of  the  Bible  for  their  libraiy,  could  procure  no  parchment  for 
this  purpose  in  England."  ^  Paper  made  of  cotton,  however,  was 
certainly  in  common  use  in  the  twelfth  century,  though  no  evi- 
dence exists  that  that  manufactiu'ed  from  linen  rags  was  known  tiU 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth. 


THE  LATIN  LANGUAGE. 

During  the  whole  of  the  Anglo-Norman  period,  and  down  to  a 
much  later  date,  in  England  as  in  the  other  countries  of  Christendom, 
the  common  language  of  literary  composition,  in  all  works  intended 
for  the  perusal  of  the  educated  classes,  was  still  the  Latin,  the  lan- 
guage of  religion  throughout  the  western  world,  as  it  had  been  from 
the  first  ages  of  the  Church.  Christianity  had  not  only,  through 
its  monastic  institutions,  saved  from  destruction,  in  the  breaking  up 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  whatever  we  still  possess  of  ancient  litera- 
ti ire,  but  had  also,  by  its  priesthood  and  its  ritual,  preserved  the 
language  of  Rome  in  some  sort  still  a  living  and  spoken  tongue, — 
corrupted  indeed  by  the  introduction  of  many  new  and  barbarous 
terms,  and  illegitimate  acceptations,  and  by  much  bad  taste  in  style 
1  Introd.  of  Learning  into  England,  p.  cxvi. 


88  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  phraseology,  but  still  ■svholly  unchanged  in  its  gi*ammatical 
forms,  and  even  in  its  vocabulary  much  less  altered  than  it  proba- 
bly would  have  been  if  it  had  continued  all  the  while  to  be  spoken 
and  written  by  an  unmixed  Roman  population.  It  would  almost 
seem  as  if,  even  in  the  Teutonic  countries,  such  as  England,  the 
services  of  the  church,  uninterruptedly  repeated  in  the  same  words 
since  the  first  ages,  had  kept  up  in  the  general  mind  something  of 
a  dim  ti'aditionary  understanding  of  the  old  imperial  tongue.  We 
read  of  some  foreign  ecclesiastics,  who  could  not  speak  English, 
being  accustomed  to  preach  to  the  people  in  Latin.  A  passage 
quoted  above  from  the  Croyland  History  seems  to  imply  that  Gisle- 
bert,  or  Gilbert,  one  of  the  foimders  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, used  to  employ  Latin  as  well  as  French  on  such  occasions. 
So,  Giraldus  Cambrensis  tells  us  that,  hi  a  progress  which  he  made 
through  Wales  in  1186,  to  assist  Archbishop  Baldwin  in  preaching 
a  new  crusade  for  the  delivery  of  the  Holy  Land,  he  was  ahvays 
most  successful  when  he  appealed  to  the  people  in  a  Latin  sermon ; 
he  asserts,  indeed,  that  they  did  not  understand  a  word  of  it, 
although  it  never  failed  to  melt  them  into  tears,  and  to  make  them 
come  in  crowds  to  take  the  cross.  No  doubt  they  were  acted  upon 
chiefly  through  their  ears  and  their  imaginations,  and  for  the  most 
part  only  supposed  that  they  comprehended  what  they  were  listen- 
ing to  ;  but  it  is  probable  that  their  self-deception  was  assisted  by 
their  catching  a  word  or  phrase  here  and  there  the  meaning  of 
which  they  really  understood.  The  Latin  tongue  must  in  those 
days  have  been  heard  in  common  life  on  a  thousand  occasions  from 
which  it  has  now  passed  away.  It  was  the  language  of  all  the 
learned  professions,  of  law  and  j)hysic  as  well  as  of  divinity,  in  all 
their  grades.  It  was  in  Latin  that  the  teachers  at  the  Universities 
(many  of  whom,  as  well  as  of  the  ecclesiastics,  were  foreigners) 
delivered  their  prelections  in  all  the  sciences,  and  that  all  the  dis- 
putations and  other  exercises  among  the  students  were  carried  on. 
Tt  was  the  same  at  all  the  monastic  schools  and  other  seminaries 
of  learning.  The  number  of  persons  by  whom  these  various  institu- 
tions were  attended  was  very  great :  they  were  of  all  ages  from  boy- 
Iiooil  to  advanced  manhood  ;  and  poor  scholars  must  have  been  found 
in  every  village,  mingling  with  every  class  of  the  people,  in  some 
«)ne  or  other  of  the  avocations  which  they  followed  in  the  intervals 
of  their  attendance  at  the  Universities,  or  after  they  had  finished 
their  education,  from  parish  priests  down  to  wandering  beggars. 


LATIN  POETS.  — MAPES,   ETC. 

Much  Latin  poetry  was  written  in  this  age  by  Englishmen,  some 
of  it  of  a  popular  character.  Warton  enumerates  Joannes  Gram- 
maticus,^  Lawrence,  prior  of  Durham,  Robert  Dunstable,^  the  his- 
torians Henry  of  Huntingdon,  Geoffi-ey  of  Monmouth,  Eadmer, 
William  of  Malmesbury,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  and  Geoffrey  de 
Vinsauf  (^Galfridus  de  Vinosalvo'),  John  Hauvill,^  Alexander 
Neckam,  Walter  Mapes,  archdeacon  of  Oxford,  and  above  all 
Joseph  Iscanus,  or  Joseph  of  Exeter,  Avhom  he  characterizes  as 
"  a  miracle  in  classical  composition  ;  "  adding,  in  regard  to  one 
of  his  works,  an  epic  on  the  subject  of  the  Trojan  war,  "  The 
diction  of  this  poem  is  generally  pure,  the  periods  round,  and  the 
numbers  harmonious  ;  and  on  the  whole  the  structure  of  the  ver- 
sification approaches  nearly  to  that  of  poHshed  Latin  poetry."  * 
Walter  Mapes,  or  rather  Map,  who  was  archdeacon  of  Oxford, 
has  the  credit  of  having  been  the  author  of  most  of  the  pieces  of 
Latin  poetry  belonging  to  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century, 
which  from  their  form  and  character  may  be  supposed  to  have  ac- 
quired anything  like  general  popularity.  In  particular  the  famous 
drinking  song,  in  rhyming  or  Leonine  verse,  beginning  — 

"  Meum  est  propositum  in  taberna  mori," 
is  attributed  to  this  "  genial  archdeacon."  ^ 

1  Mr.  Wright  (Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  48)  denies  the  existence  of  this  writer,  supposed 
by  Tanner  and  others  to  have  belonged  to  the  latter  part  of  the  eleventh  century. 
The  works  attributed  to  him,  he  says,  were  certainly  written  by  other  persons. 

2  His  name  appears  to  have  been,  not  Robert,  but  Radulph  (or  Ralph).  See 
Wright's  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  212. 

8  Mr.  Wright  has  shown  that  the  name  is  not  Ranvill  (as  given  by  Warton), 
but  Hauvill,  or  HauteciUe,  in  Latin  De  Alta  Vitra.  See  his  note  on  Warton,  p.  cxxi., 
and  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  250,  &c. 

*  Dissertation  on  the  Introd.  of  Learning  into  England,  cxvii.-cxxxiv. 

*  The  expression  is  Warton's  (Diss,  on  Introd.  of  Learning,  p.  exxvi.).  The 
Latin  Poems  commonly  attributed  to  Walter  Mapes  have  been  printed  by  the  Cam- 
den Society,  as  collected  and  edited  by  Thomas  Wright,  Esq.,  M.  A.,  F.  S.  A.,  &c., 
4to.  Lond.  184L  In  an  introduction  to  this  volume  Mr.  Wright  remarks  :  —  "  The 
common  notion  that  Walter  Mapes  was  a  'jovial  toper  '  must  be  placed  in  the  long 
jst  of  vulgar  errors."  The  drinking  song,  nevertheless,  as  commonly  given,  forms 
part  of  one  of  the  pieces  which  Mr.  Wright  has  printed,  one  which  he  admits  has 
been  constantly  attrlouted  to  Mapes,  and  the  authorship  of  which,  he  says,  he  hesi- 
tates, without  any  direct  evidence  to  the  contrary,  in  taking  from  him  ;  and  the 
only  correction  which  the  perusal  of  the  entire  poem  can  make  upon  the  impression 
produced  by  the  part  commonly  quoted  is  to  extend  the  sense  in  which  we  mus< 

VOL  I.  12 


90  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

To  Warton's  dozen  names,  or  thereby,  Mr,  Wright,  in  his  ac- 
count of  the  writers  of  the  Anglo-Norman  Period  (Biog.  Brit. 
Lit.,  voh  ii.  1846),  has  added  about  a  score  of  others  belonging 
to  Latin  poets  and  versifiers  of  the  first  century  and  a  half  after 
the  Conquest.  Among  the  most  important  are  those  of  Guy,  or 
Wido,  bishop  of  Amiens,  author  of  an  elegiac  poem  on  the  Battle 
of  Hastings,  discovered  a  few  years  ago  at  Brussels,  and  since  sev- 
eral times  printed;  Godfrey,  prior  of  Winchester,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eleventh  century,  whom  Mr.  Wright  designates  as 
"  the  first  and  best  of  the  Anglo-Norman  writers  of  Latin  verse  ;  " 
Hilarius,  author  of  three  scriptural  dramas  and  a  number  of  shorter 
pieces,  preserved  in  a  single  manuscript  now  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Impdriale  at  Paris,  from  which  they  were  edited  in  1838  by  M. 
Champollion-Figeac  ;  John  of  Salisbury,  a  work  in  verse  by  whom 
was  edited  by  Professor  Christian  Petersen,  at  Hamburgh,  in  1843 ; 
and  Nigellus  Wireker,  for  whose  surname,  however,  Mr,  Wright 
finds  no  satisfactory  authority,  the  author,  among  other  pieces,  of 
the  Speculum  Stultorum  referred  to  in  a  preceding  page. 


LATIN   CHRONICLERS. 

But  by  far  the  most  valuable  portion  of  our  Latin  literature  of 
this  age  consists  of  the  numerous  historical  works  which  it  has  be- 
queathed to  us.  As  these  works  have  a  double  interest  for  the 
English  reader,  belonging  to  the  country  and  the  age  in  which 
they  were  written  by  their  subject  as  wxdl  as  by  their  authorship, 
we  will  give  some  account  of  the  most  important  of  them. 

The  following  are  the  principal  collections  that  have  been  made 
in  modern  times  of  our  old  Latin  historians  or  chroniclers  :  — 

1.  Rerum  Britannicarum,  id  est,  Anglian,  Scotias,  Vicinarumque 
Insiilarum  ac  Regionum,  Scriptores  Vetustiores  ac  Praicipui :  (a 
HiER.  CoMMELiNo).     Fol.  Heidelb.  &  Lugd.  1587. 

consider  the  author  to  have  been  what  he  has  been  designated,  the  Anacreon  of  his 
day.  Lord  Lyttelton,  from  wlioni  that  epithet  is  quoted  by  Warton  as  a  very  happy 
one,  has  inadvertently  written  tlie  Anacreon  of  the  rlcventli,  instead  of  the  twelfth, 
century.  Mapes  lived  and  wrote  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  II.  and  Richard  I.  :  his 
loath,  according  to  Mr.  Wright,  "is  supposed  to  have  occurred  towards  the  year 
1210."     (Introd.  to  Poems,  p.  vii.) 


LATIN   CHRONICLERS.  91 

2.  "JRerum  Anglicarum  Scriptores  post  Bedam  Prsecipui,  ex  Ve- 
tustissimis  MSS.  nunc  primum  in  lucem  editi :  (a  Hen.  Savile). 
Fol.  Lon.  1696,  and  Francof.  1601. 

3.  Anglica,  Normannica,  Hibernica,  Cambrica,  aveteribus  Scripta, 
8x  Bibl   GuiLiELMi  Camdeni.     Fol.  Francof.  1602  and  1603. 

4.  Historiaa  Normannorum  Scriptores  Antiqui ;  studio  Andrews 
Duchesne.     Fol.  Paris.  1619. 

5.  Historiae  Anglicanse  Scriptores  Decern,  ex  vetustis  MSS. 
nunc  primum  in  lucem  editi :  (a  Rog.  Twysden  et  Joan.  Selden). 
Fol.  Lon.  1652. 

6.  Rerum  Anglicarum  Scriptorum  Veterum  Tomus  I""' ;  Quo- 
rum Ingulfus  nunc  primum  integer,  ceteri  nunc  primum,  prodeunt : 
(a  Joan.  Fell,  vel  potius  Gul.  Fulman).  Fol.  Oxon.  1684. 
(Sometimes  incorrectly  cited  as  the  1st  vol.  of  Gale's  Collection.) 

7.  Historic  Anglicanae  Scriptores  Quinque,  ex  vetustis  Codd. 
MSS.  nunc  primum  in  lucem  editi :  (a  Thom.  Gale).  Fol.  Oxon. 
1687.     (This  is  properly  the  2d  vol.  of  Gale's  Collection.) 

8.  Historise  Britannicge,  Saxonicae,  Anglo-Danicaa,  Scriptores 
Quindecim,  ex  vetustis  Codd.  MSS.  editi,  opera  Thom^  Gale. 
Fol.  Oxon.  1691.  (This  is  properly  the  1st  vol.  of  Gale's  Collec- 
tion, though  often  cited  as  the  3d.) 

9.  Anglia  Sacra ;  sive  Collectio  Historiarum  .  .  .  de  Archie- 
piscopis  et  Episcopis  Anglige ;  (a  Henrico  Wharton).  2  Tom. 
Fol.  Lon.  1691. 

10.  Historiae  Anglicanae  Scriptores  Varii,  e  Codd.  MSS.  nunc 
primum  editi:   (a  Jos.  Sparke).     Fol.  Lon.  1723. 

11.  Historias  Anglicanae  circa  tempus  Conquestus  Angliae  a 
Guilielmo  Notho,  Normannorum  Duce,  selecta  Monumenta  ;  ex- 
cerpta  ex  volumine  And.  Duchesne  ;  cumNotis,  &c.:  (a  Francisco 
Maseres).     4to.  Lon.  1807. 

12.  Monumenta  Historica  Britannica ;  or,  Materials  for  the  His- 
tory of  Britain  from  the  earliest  period  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of 
King  Henry  VIL  Published  by  command  of  her  Majesty.  Vol. 
1st  (extending  to  the  NoiTnan  Conquest).  Fol.  Lon.  1848.  (By 
Petrie,  Sharpe,  and  Hardy.) 

To  which  may  be  added :  — 

13.  The  series  of  works  printed  by  the  Historical  Soceety, 
from  1838  to  1856,  extending  to  29  vols.  8vo. ;  and, 

14.  The  series  entitled  Rermn  Britannicarum  Medii  ^vi  Scrip- 
tores, or  Chronicles  and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 


92  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

during  the  IVliddle  Ages.  Published  by  autliority  of  her  Majesty's 
Treasury,  under  the  dkection  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls.  8vo. 
Lou.  1857,  &c. 


INGULPHUS. 


The  History  of  the  Abbey  of  Croyland,  or,  as  the  place  is  now 
called,  Crowland,  in  Lincolnshire,  professing  to  be  written  by  the 
Abbot  Ingulphus,  who  presided  over  the  establishmeut  from  a.  d. 
1075  till  his  death,  at  the  age  of  about  eighty,  in  1109,  was  first 
published  from  an  miperfect  copy  by  Sir  Henry  Savile  in  his  collec« 
tion  (Lon.  1596,  and  Francfort  1601)  ;  and  afterwards  in  a  more 
complete  form  by  Fulmanin  his  Scriptores  Veteres  (Oxford  1684). 
In  the  interval  between  these  two  (the  only)  editions  of  the  work, 
the  Laws  of  William  the  Conqueror,  in  French,  which  were  wanting 
in  the  MS.  used  by  Savile,  were  published  from  another  MS.  by 
Selden  in  1623  in  his  edition  of  Eadmer,  and  from  another  by  Sir 
Henry  Spelman  in  1639  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Concilia.  All 
these  four  (the  only  kno\\'n)  ]MSS.  of  the  work  have  now  disap- 
peared. Of  what  has  become  of  that  used  by  Savile  nothing  is 
known  ;  that  from  Avhich  Selden  took  his  copy  of  the  Laws  of  the 
Conqueror  seems  to  have  been  one  which  was  in  the  Cotton  Library, 
—  the  same  from  which  Fulman  was  suj)plied  with  a  leaf  in  which 
his  own  MS.  was  defective  bv  his  friend  Gale,^ — and  that  wa* 
destroyed  by  the  calamitous  fire  at  Ashburnham  House  in  1731  ; 
that  which  Spelman  transcribed  was  preserved  in  the  chm'ch  of 
Croyland,  in  a  chest  locked  with  three  keys,  which  were  kept  by 
the  church-wardens,  and  was  believed  by  him  to  be  what  it  was 
reputed,  the  author's  autograph, — but,  as  Selden  could  not  obtain 
access  to  it  a  few  years  before,  so  nobody  has  seen  it  since,  and, 
when  Fulman  made  inquiiy  after  it  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same 
centuiy,  it  was  no  longer  to  be  found  ;  —  finally,  that  employed  by 
Fulman,  which  belonged  to  Sir  John  Marsham,  w^as  afterwards 
given  or  lent  by  him  to  Obadiah  Walker,  the  famous  Master  of 
University  College,  who  was  turned  out  at  the  Revolution  in  1688, 
and  all  that  further  appears  is  that  Walker  told  Bishop  Gibson  in 
1694  that  it  was  then  in  the  library  of  University  College,  where 
1  See  Rer.  Ang.  Script.  1684,  Praefat.,  and  p.  131. 


INGULPHUS.  93 

however  it  has  not  since  been  found.  It  seems  most  hkely  that  it 
never  was  deposited  there,  but  was  carried  off  by  Walker,  who  pro* 
fessed  to  consider  it  as  his  own  property  on  the  simple  principle, 
Avhich  it  appears  is  recognized  among  antiquarian  collectors,  that  a 
manuscript  belongs  to  any  one  who  has  once,  no  matter  by  what 
means,  got  it  into  his  possession.  "  The  old  gentleman,"  writes 
Gibson  to  Dr.  Charlett,  the  then  Master  of  University  College,  in 
relating  what  had  just  passed  between  them  on  the  subject,  "  has 
too  much  of  the  spirit  of  an  antiquary  and  a  great  scholar  to  think 
stealing  a  manuscript  any  sin.  He  has  ordered  me  not  to  discover 
where  it  is  lodged."  These  particulars  are  mostly  collected  from  a 
leai"ned  and  valuable  paper  on  the  sources  of  Anglo-Saxon  history 
which  appeared  some  years  ago  in  the  Quarterly  Review,^  and  to 
which  we  shall  have  frequent  occasion  further  to  refer.  The  writer 
(understood  to  be  Sir  Francis  Palgrave)  proceeds  to  show,  very 
ingeniously  and  conclusively,  that  the  MS.  which  Spelman  saw  at 
Croyland  could  not  in  all  probability  have  been  older  than  the  end 
of  the  thirteenth  or  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  from 
a  mistranscription  of  a  word  in  his  extract  (^Eustres  for  Eucsqes), 
which  was  very  likely  to  have  taken  place  in  copying  a  writing  of 
that  date,  but  could  hardly  have  happened  in  reading  a  manuscript 
of  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  age  of  Ingulphus.  But, 
if  the  external  evidence  for  the  antiquity  and  authenticity  of  the 
work  be  thus  defective,  the  internal  evidence  may  be  pronounced 
to  be  conclusive  against  its  claim  to  be  accovnited  either  the  com- 
position of  Ingulphus  or  a  work  of  any  historical  value.  It  appears 
in  fact  to  be,  if  not  altogether  what  the  reviewer  calls  it,  "  an  his- 
torical novel,"  at  least  in  the  main  a  monkish  forgery  of  the  thir- 
teenth or  fourteenth  century,  which  may  possibly  contain  some 
things  not  the  produce  of  the  writer's  invention,  and  found  by  him 
in  histories  or  other  records  now  lost,  but  no  statement  in  which, 
whatever  appearance  of  probability  it  may  wear,  can  be  safely  re- 
ceived upon  its  authority.  Not  only  the  portion  of  the  history 
which  relates  to  the  times  preceding  the  pretended  writer's  own 
age,  but  the  account  which  Ingulphus  is  made  to  give  of  himself, 
is  fr^ll  of  the  most  glaring  improbabilities,  and  in  some  parts  demon- 

1  Vol.  xxxiv.  No.  67  (for  June,  1826),  pp.  248-298.  According  to  Mr.  Wright,  how- 
ever  (Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  31),  "  there  is  a  transcript  of  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century  among  the  Arundel  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum,  No.  178,  which  was  evi- 
dently the  copy  from  which  Savile  printed  his  edition."     "  The  MS.  used  by  Gale 
Fulnian],"  he  adds,  "is  said  to  exist  in  the  Library  at  Holkliam." 


94  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

strably  false  and  impossible.  For  the  demonstration,  however,  we 
must  refer  the  reader  to  the  article  in  the  Qviarterly  Review,  the 
writer  of  which  justly  observes  that  "  anachronisms  which  merely 
impeach  the  accuracy  of  the  historian  are  entirely /a^a?  to  autobiog- 
raphy.'''' In  none  of  our  chroniclers  anterior  to  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, the  reviewer  asserts,  is  there  a  single  line  to  be  traced  that  is 
borrowed  from  Ingulphus.  And  this  is  a  fact  of  no  slight  signifi- 
cance :  —  "If  the  work,"  he  remarks,  "  had  existed,  it  could 
scarcely  have  been  neglected  by  these  inveterate  compilers."  Of 
course,  if  the  History  of  Croyland  by  Ingiilphvis  be  rejected,  its 
continuation  to  A.  D.  1118,  attributed  to  Peter  of  Blois,  which  was 
also  contained  in  the  Cotton  and  Sir  John  Marsham's  codices,  and 
is  published  in  Fulman's  Collection,  must  be  included  in  the  same 
sentence,  its  pretended  author  having  died  long  before  the  date  at 
which,  upon  this  supposition,  the  work  he  professes  to  continue  was 
written.  There  are  also  three  further  continuations,  bringing  doAvni 
the  narrative,  ^vith  certain  gaps,  to  the  year  1469.  An  English 
translation  of  the  whole,  by  Mr.  H.  T.  Riley,  was  published  in 
Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library,  in  1854 ;  and  another  the  same  year 
by  Mr.  Stevenson  in  vol.  ii.  Part  2d  of  the  Church  Historians  of 
England. 


WILLIA^I   OF   POITIERS. 

Putting  Ingulphus  and  his  first  continuator  aside,  our  oldest 
historian  of  the  Conquest  will  be  William  of  Poitiers  (Guillelmus 
Pictavensis,  Pictaviensis,  or  Pictavinus),  whose  life  of  the  Con- 
queror (Gesta  Gnillelmi  Ducis  Norinannorum  et  Regis  Anglorum) 
was  published  by  Duchesne  in  his  Historiic  Normannorum  Scrip- 
tores,  Paris,  1619,  and  has  been  reprinted  by  Baron  Maseres  in 
his  useful  selection  from  that  scarce  volume,  Lon.  1808.  A  new 
edition  announced  as  in  preparation  by  the  English  Historical  So- 
ciety, has  never  appeared  ;  but  a  translation  into  French,  originally 
published  at  Caen  in  1826,  is  included  in  M.  Guizot's  Collection 
des  M(iin()ires  relatifs  a  I'llistoire  de  France,  jusqu'au  13"  siecle, 
31  vols.  8vo.  Paris,  1820-35.  Unfortunately  the  only  known  MS. 
of  the  Avork,  which  is  in  the  Cotton  I^ibrary  at  the  British  Museum, 
is  imperfect:   Ordericus  Vitalis  (writing  in  the  beginning  of  the 


WILLIAM   OF  POITIERS.  95 

next  centuiy)  expressly  describes  the  narrative  as  ending  with  the 
death  of  Earl  Edwin  in  1070,  but  what  we  have  of  it  comes  down 
only  to  March,  or  April,  1067.  The  beginning  is  also  wanting. 
What  remains,  however,  which  includes  the  English  and  Norman 
story  from  the  death  of  Canute  in  1035,  when  the  Norman  duke 
was  only  eight  years  old,  to  his  coronation  as  king  of  England  after 
the  victoiy  of  Hastings,  and  the  first  acts  of  his  reign,  is  of  the 
highest  valvie.  William  of  Poitiers  was  not  an  Englishman  ;  he 
was  a  native  of  Normandy,  and  derived  his  surname  of  Pictavi- 
ensis  from  having  received  his  education  at  Poitiers  ;  but  he  appears 
to  have  accompanied  his  hero  and  patron  on  his  expedition  to  Eng- 
land, and,  in  that  as  well  as  in  the  other  parts  of  his  story,  to  re- 
late for  the  most  part  what  he  had  seen  with  his  o\\ti  eyes.  He 
had  been  in  close  attendance  upon  or  connection  with  the  Con- 
queror for  the  greater  part  of  their  lives,  having  first  served  under 
him  as  a  soldier,  and  having  afterwards  been  made  his  chaplain,  — 
if  indeed  he  may  not,  like  Friar  Tuck  and  Robin  Hood  in  the  next 
age,  have  officiated  at  the  same  time  in  both  these  capacities.  Nc 
one,  therefore,  could  have  enjoyed  better  opportunities  of  observing 
and  appreciating  William  in  all  aspects  of  his  character,  public  and 
domestic,  as  a  sovei'eign  and  as  a  man  ;  and  Pictaviensis  had  both 
head  and  heart  enough  of  his  own  to  comprehend  the  high  nature 
with  which  he  was  thus  brought  into  contact.  His  biography  of 
the  Conqueror  is  throughout  a  cordial  and  sjanpathizing  narrative 
—  a  full-length  picture  of  a  great  man  draAvn  at  least  with  no  timid 
hand.  Yet  there  is  no  profession  or  apparent  design  of  defence  or 
panegyric,  and  but  little  direct  expression  of  admiration  ;  that  feel- 
ing is  too  natural,  too  habitual,  too  much  a  matter  of  course  with 
the  worthy  chaplain  to  be  very  often  or  very  emphatically  ex- 
pressed ;  Avith  no  misgivings  either  of  his  subject  or  of  his  reader, 
he  contents  himself  for  the  most  part  with  stating  facts,  and  leav- 
ing them  to  speak  for  themselves.  The  work,  it  may  be  added,  is 
written  with  considerable  ambition  of  eloquence  ;  Pictaviensis  had 
had  a  learned  education  to  begin  with,  which  his  campaigning  did 
not  knock  out  of  him,  so  that,  when  he  returned  in  his  old  age  to 
his  native  country  and  was  made  archdeacon  of  Lisieux,  he  was 
esteemed  quite  a  shining  light  of  scholarship  in  the  Norman  Church. 
In  the  judgment  of  Ordericus  Vitalis  his  Latin  is  an  imitation  of 
that  of  Sallust ;  and  in  the  same  subtle  and  artistic  style,  we  are 
told,  he  also  wrote  much  verse,  none  of  which,  however,  appears 
to  be  now  extant. 


96  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


ORDERICUS   VITALIS. 

Ordericus  Vitalis  is  the  author  of  a  general  E:!clesiastical  His 
torj,  beginning  from  tlie  Creation  and  coming  down  to  a.  d.  1141, 
the  whole  of  which,  consisting  of  thirteen  books,  and  occupying 
above  600  folio  pages,  or  more  than  half  of  his  collection,  Du- 
chesne has  printed.  A  greatly  improved  edition  of  the  entire  work, 
by  M.  A.  Le  Provost,  the  pubUcation  of  which  at  Paris  was  begun 
in  1838  under  the  auspices  of  the  Society  de  FHistoire  de  France, 
was  completed  in  5  volumes  8vo.  in  1855  ;  and  a  reproduction  of 
the  old  text  of  Duchesne  is  stated  to  form  the  148th  volume  of  the 
Patrologie  of  M.  I'Abbe  Migne,  published  tk;  same  year.  Order- 
icus, or  Ordricus,  who  assumed  the  name  of  Vitalis  on  becoming  a 
monk  of  the  monastery  of  Ouche  ( Uticum'),  otherwise  known  as 
that  of  St.  Evi-oult,  in  Normandy,  in  which  he  spent  the  rest  of 
his  days,  was  of  English  birth  :  he  was  born  at  a  village  which  he 
calls  Attingesham  (Atcham)  on  the  Severn,  in  Shropshire,  in 
1075 ;  and,  although  he  had  been  carried  to  the  Continent  to  be 
educated  for  the  ecclesiastical  profession  when  he  was  only  in  his 
eleventh  year,  and  spent  all  the  rest  of  liis  life  abroad,  he  contin- 
ued to  take  a  special  interest  in  the  aflfairs  of  his  native  countiy, 
and  of  its  Norman  so\'ei-eigns,  with  whom  his  father,  whom  he 
calls  Odelerius,  the  son  of  Constantius  of  Orleans,  had  probably 
been  nearly  connected  as  principal  counsellor  (praicipuo  consili- 
ario),  whatever  that  may  mean,  to  Roger  Montgomery,  Earl  of 
ShreAvsbury,  who  was  one  of  the  followers  of  the  Conqueror.  He 
is  accordiiigly  very  full  in  his  account  of  English  transactions  from 
the  epoch  of  the  Norman  Conquest  ;  and  his  history  is  particu- 
larly valuable  in  the  portion  of  it  from  a.  d.  1006  to  1070,  as  in 
some  sort  supplying  what  is  lost  of  that  of  Pictaviensis,  whose  nar- 
rative he  professes  generally  to  have  followed,  although  not  with- 
out both  omissions  and  variations.  This  portion  of  the  History  of 
Ordericus  Vitalis,  making  about  a  thirteenth  part  of  the  whole,  has 
been  reprinted  by  INIaseres  in  his  Selecta  Monumcnta  ;  and  there 
is  a  French  translation  of  the  entire  work  by  Louis  Du  Bois,  in 
the  collection  of  ancient  French  Memoires,  published  at  Pans 
under  the  superintendence  of  M.  Guizot.  (Vols.  25,  26,  27, 
and  28.)  An  English  translation,  with  Notes,  by  Mr.  Thomas 
Forester,  has  appeared  in  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library,  in  4  vols., 
1853-4. 


GESTA   STEPHANi.  —  WILLIAM   OF  JUIVIIEGES.  97 

A  remarkable  ti-atnnont,  taken  from  an  ancient  book  belono-ing 
to  the  monastery  of  St.  Stephen  at  Caen,  containing  an  account  of 
the  last  hours  of  the  Conquei'or,  and  of  his  death  and  ftineral, 
which  Camden  has  printed  in  his  Collection,  and  which  he  conjec- 
tm-es  to  be  probably  from  the  pen  of  Guillelmus  Pictaviensis,  is 
in  fact  the  concluding  portion  of  the  Seventh  Book  of  Ordericus 
Vitalis.  A  translation  of  it  is  given  by  Stow  in  his  Chronicle.  Or- 
dericus has  himself  told  us  that  Pictaviensis  was  prevented  by  cir- 
cumstances from  bringing  down  his  History,  as  he  had  intended  to 
do,  to  the  death  of  the  Conqueror. 


GESTA   STEPHANL  — WILLIAM   OF   JUMIEGES. 

Another  valuable  portion  of  the  English  history  of  this  period 
by  a  contemporary  writer,  which  Duchesne  has  published,  is  the 
tract  entitled  Gesta  Stephani,  tilling  about  fifty  of  his  pages.  It  is 
by  a  partisan  of  Stephen,  but  is  probably  the  fairest,  as  it  is  the 
ftillest  and  most  distinct,  account  we  have  of  his  turbulent  reign. 
A  new  edition  of  it,  prepared  by  Mr.  R.  C.  Sewell,  was  pub- 
lished by  the  English  Historical  Society  in  1846 ;  and  it  is  trans- 
lated, along  with  the  Chronicle  of  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  by  Mr. 
Forester,  in  one  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library, 
1853. 

In  Duchesne's  Collection  is  likewise  the  History,  in  eight  books, 
of  the  Dukes  of  Normandy,  by  William,  the  monk  of  Jumieges, 
surnamed  Calculus,  —  Willelmi  Calculi  Gemmeticensis  Monachi 
Historia  Normannorum,  —  which  Camden  had  printed  before,  from 
a  worse  manuscinpt  and  less  correctly,  in  his  Anglica,  Normannica, 
&c.  Of  this  also  there  is  a  French  translation  in  M.  Guizot's  Col- 
lection (vol.  29)  :  it  was  originally  published  at  Caen,  along  with 
William  of  Poitiers,  in  1826.  Gemmeticensis  in  the  earlier  part 
of  his  work,  down  to  the  accession  of  Duke  Richard  II.,  the  great- 
grandfather of  William  the  Conqueror,  in  996,  is  little  more  than 
an  abridger  of  the  earlier  Norman  historian  Dudo  (also  in  Du- 
chesne) ;  but  there  are  a  few  facts  not  elsewhere  to  be  found  in 
the  sequel,  which  brings  down  the  narrative  of  Norman  and  Eng- 
lish affairs  to  his  own  time,  and  which  is  farther  continued  through 

VOL.  r.  13 


5»  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  rri<^ns  of  the  Conqueror  and  his  two  sons,  apparently  by 
another  hand ;  tin*  Gemmeticensis  dedicates  his  work  to  the  Con- 
queror, and  Ordericus  VitaHs  expressly  states  that  he  finished  it 
with  the  battle  of  Hastinjrs. 


FLORENCE   OF   WORCESTER. 

The  earliest  of  our  English  chroniclers  or  annahsts,  properly  so 
called,  who  A^Tote  after  the  Norman  Conquest  is  commonly  held  to 
be  the  monk  Florence  of  Worcester,  whose  work,  entitled  Chroni- 
con  ex  Chronicis,  was  printed  in  4to.,  at  London,  in  1592,  under 
the  care  of  Lord  William  Howard,^  and  reprinted  in  folio  at  Franc- 
fort  in  1601.  Two  new  editions  have  recently  been  published :  — 
one,  by  Mr.  Petrie,  in  the  Monumenta,  1848  ;  the  other  pre- 
pared by  Mr.  Thorpe  for  the  Historical  Society,  2  vols.  8vo., 
1848-49.  It  extends  fi-om  the  Creation  to  the  year  1119,  in 
which  the  author  died  ;  and  there  is  printed  along  with  it  a  con 
tinuation  by  another  writer  to  the  year  1141.  It  is,  for  the  gi-eater 
part,  a  transcript  fi'om  the  notices  of  English  affairs  contained  in 
the  General  History  or  Chronology  which  bears  the  name  of 
Marianus  Scotus,  intermixed  with  a  nearly  complete  transcript  of 
Asser's  Life  of  King  Alfred,  and  enlarged  in  the  times  not  treated 
of  in  that  work  by  ample  translations  from  the  National  Chronicle. 
The  Chronicle  of  Scotus  (said  to  have  been  of  English  birth  and 
descended  from  a  relation  of  Bede),  Mas  a  favorite  book  in  our 
monasteries  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  "  there  was  hardly  one  in  the 
kingdom,"  says  Bishop  Nicolson,  "  that  wanted  a  copy  of  it,  and 
some  had  several."  Besides  the  numerous  transcripts,  which  vary 
greatly,  it  has  been  more  than  once  printed,  but  never,  we  believe, 
in  a  complete  form.  Speaking  of  Florence  of  Worcester's  comi)i- 
lation,  the  writer  of  the  article  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  to  wliich 
we  have  more  than  once  referred,  observes :    "  Some  notices  are 

1  This  was  Lord  William  Howard,  Warden  of  tlie  Western  Marches,  the  "Belted 
Will  Howard  "  of  Border  tradition,  whose  castle  of  Naworth,  in  Cumberland,  where 
his  bedroom  and  library  were  preserved,  with  the  books  and  furniture,  in  the  same 
Btate  as  when  he  tenanted  the  apartments  more  than  two  centuries  ago,  was  unhap- 
pily consumed  a  few  years  ago  by  an  accidental  tire,  with  all  its  interesting  cod 
;  tents. 


MATTHEW   OF   WESTMINSTER.  99 

extracted  from  Bede.  The  facts  of  which  the  original  sources  can- 
not be  ascertained  are  very  few,  but  important,  and  occur  princi- 
pally in  the  early  part  of  this  history.  They  are  generally  of  that 
class  which  we  may  suppose  to  have  been  derived  from  the  Saxon 
genealogies.  Though  the  great  mass  of  information  afforded  by 
Florence  is  extant  in  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  still  his  work  is  ex- 
tremely valuable.  He  understood  the  ancient  Saxon  language 
well  —  better,  perhaps,  than  any  of  his  contemporaries;  and  he 
has  famished  us  with  an  accurate  translation  from  a  text  Avhich 
seems  to  have  been  the  best  of  its  kind."  The  principal  value  of 
Florence's  performance  in  fact  consists  in  its  serving  as  a  key  to 
the  Chronicle.  One  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Library  contains  a 
translation,  by  Mr.  Forester,  of  Florence  of  Worcester,  and  also 
of  two  anonymous  continuations  of  his  work,  one  of  which,  extend- 
ing to  the  year  1141,  is  accounted  of  great  value.  This  is  not 
given  in  the  Monumenta,  but  it  is  in  the  other  editions.  Both 
Florence  and  his  continuators  appear  also  in  the  First  Part  of  the 
Second  Volume  of  The  Church  Historians  of  England  (1853),  "  in 
part  translated  "  by  Mr,  Stevenson. 


MATTHEW   OF   WESTMINSTER. 

The  Quarterly  Reviewer,  how^ever,  is  inclined  to  think  that 
Florence  was  preceded  by  another  writer,  the  author  of  the  com- 
pilation entitled  Flores  Historianim,  usually  ascribed  to  Matthew 
of  Westminster,  who  appears  to  be  a  fictitious  personage.  This 
English  History,  which  has  been  brought  down  by  other  unknown 
writers  to  the  year  1307  (or  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Edward  L), 
is  based  upon  another  general  chronicle  similar  to  that  of  Mariantis 
Scotus,  with  the  addition  of  much  matter  derived  apparently  fi'om 
ancient  English  sources,  some  of  which  are  unknown.  The  wri- 
ter in  the  Quarterly  Review,  who  prefers  giving  the  author  the 
name  of  Florilegus,  thinks  it  probable  that  his  work  supplied 
Florence  with  certain  passages  which  are  not  found  in  the  National 
Chronicle.  "  Florilegus,"  he  observes,  "has  retained  and  quoted 
A  sufficient  number  of  Anglo-Saxonisms,  and  of  Anglo-Saxon 
phrases,  to  show  that  he  was  in  possession  of  Saxon  materials, 


100  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

which  he  consulted  to  the  best  of  his  abihty.  He  has  not  iiseo 
them  with  tlie  tidehty  of  Florence  of  Worcester,  for  his  knowledge 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  language  was  imperfect,  but  still  he  is  not 
g-uilty  of  anv  intentional  falsification,  and,  therefore,  when  he  re- 
lates probal)le  facts,  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  he  is  equally  veracious, 
although  the  Saxon  original  of  his  Chronicle  be  not  extant."  ^  The 
work,  under  the  title  of  ]Matth»i  Westmonasteriensis  Flores  His- 
torianim,  pra^cipue  de  Rebus  Britannicis,  ab  exordio  mundi  usque 
ad  A.  D.  1307,  w^as  first  published  by  Archbishop  Parker,  in  folio, 
at  London  in  1567,  and  again  in  1570 ;  and  was  reprinted,  in  folio, 
at  Francfort  in  1601,  along  with  Florence  of  Worcester.  There 
is  an  English  translation  of  it,  by  Mr.  CD.  Yonge,  making  two 
vokunes  of  Bohn's  Library,  1853. 


"UaLLIAM    OF    MALMESBURY. 

The  first,  in  point  of  merit  and  eminence,  of  our  Latin  histo- 
rians of  this  period  is  William  of  Malmesbury,  so  designated  as 
having  been  a  monk  of  that  great  monastery,  although  his  proper 
surname  is  said  to  have  been  Somerset.  He  was  probably  born 
about  the  time  of  the  Norman  Conqitest ;  and,  though  of  English 
birth,  he  intimates  that  he  was  of  Norman  descent  by  one  parent, 
putting  in  a  claim  on  that  ground  to  be  accounted  an  impartial 
witness  or  jndge  between  the  two  races.  Malmesbury's  English 
History  consists  of  two  parts,  or  rather  distinct  Avorks  ;  the  first 
entitled  Gesta  Regum  Anglorum,  in  five  books,  extending  fi-om 
the  arrival  of  the  Angles  and  Saxons  to  the  vear  1120  ;  the  second 
entitled  Historia  Novella,  in  throe  books,  bringing  the  narrative 
down  to  1142.  It  has  been  commonly  supposed  that  the  author 
died  in  that  or  the  following  year ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
he  did  not  live  to  a  later  date.  A  portion  of  the  Gesta  was 
printed,  as  the  work  of  an  unknown  author,  in  Commeline's  vol- 
ume of  British  writers,  in  1587 ;  both  the  Gesta  and  the  Historia 
Novella  ai'e  in  Savile's  Collection,  1596  and  1601  ;  and  a  new  and 
much  more  correct  edition  of  the  two,  by  Mr,  Thomas  Duffus 
Hardy,  in  two  vols.  8vo.  Lon.  1840,  forms  one  of  the  publications 
'  Quarterly  Review,  No.  Ixvii.  p.  282. 


WILLIA^I    OF    MALMESBURY.  — EADMER.  101 

of  the  Historical  Society.  There  is  a  very  good  Enghsh  transla- 
tion of  William  of  Malmeshury  by  the  Rev.  John  Sharpe,  4to. 
Lon.  1815 ;  and  another,  professing  to  be  based  upon  it,  by  Dr. 
Giles,  makes  one  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Library,  1847 
Malmesbury,  although  there  is  an  interval  of  nearly  five  hundreo 
years  between  them,  stands  next  in  the  order  of  time  after  Bede 
in  the  series  of  our  historical  writers  properly  so  called,  as  distin- 
guished from  mere  compilers  and  diarists.  His  Histories  are 
throughout  original  works,  and,  in  their  degree,  artistic  composi- 
tions. He  has  evidently  taken  great  pains  with  the  manner  as 
well  as  with  the  matter  of  them.  But  he  also  evinces  throughout 
a  love  of  truth  as  the  first  quality  of  historical  writing,  and  far 
more  of  critical  faculty  in  separating  the  probable  from  the  im- 
probable than  any  other  of  his  monkish  brethren  of  that  age  who 
have  set  up  for  historians,  notwithstanding  his  fondness  for  prodi- 
2:ies  and  ecclesiastical  miracles,  in  which  of  course  he  had  the  ready 
and  all-disestive  belief  which  was  universal  in  his  time.  Of  course, 
too,  he  had  his  partialities  in  the  politics  of  his  own  day ;  and  his 
account  of  the  contest  between  Matilda  and  Stephen  may  be  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  author  of  the  Gesta  Stephani  by  those  who 
would  study  both  sides  of  the  question.  Both  his  histories  are  in- 
scribed in  very  encomiastic  dedications  to  Robert  Earl  of  Glouces- 
ter, Matilda's  famous  champion.  Savile's  Collection  also  contains 
another  work  of  Malmesbury's,  his  Lives  of  the  Bishops  of  Eng- 
land (De  Gestis  Pontificum  Anglorum),  in  four  books ;  and  a 
Life  of  St.  Aldhelm  (bishop  of  Sherborn),  assumed  to  be  a  fifth 
book  of  this  work,  was  afterwards  published  by  Gale  in  his  Scrip- 
tores  XV.  Oxon.  1691,  and  the  same  year  by  Henry  Wharton,  in 
the  second  volume  of  his  Anglia  Sacra.  Gale's  volume  contains, 
besides,  a  History  of  the  Monastery  of  Glastonbury  by  Malmes- 
bury, —  De  Antiquitate  Glastoniensis  Ecclesise ;  —  and  Wharton's 
contains  his  Life  of  St.  Wulstan.  Others  of  his  treatises  still 
remain  in  manuscript. 


EADMER. 


The  Modern  History,  or  History  of  His  Own  Time  (Historia 
Novorum,    sive   Sui  Seculi),   by  his   contemporary   Eadmer,  the 


102  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

monk  of  Canterbury,  is  noticed  by  Malmesbury  in  the  Prologue, 
or  Preface,  to  the  First  Book  of  his  Gesta,  as  a  lucubration  written 
with  a  sober  festivity  of  style  (sobria  sermonis  festivitate  elucubra- 
turn  opus).  It  was  first  published  (folio,  Lon.  1623),  with  learned 
annotations,  by  Selden,  who  holds  that  in  style  Eadnier  equals 
Malmesbury,  and  in  the  value  of  his  matter  excels  him.  It  is 
also  added,  with  the  other  writings  of  Eadmer,  as  a  supplement  to 
the  Works  of  Archbishop  Anselm,  both  in  Gerberon's  edition, 
folio,  Paris,  1675,  and  in  that  of  the  Benedictines,  folio,  Paris, 
1721.  Eadmer's  History  is  distributed  into  six  books,  and  com- 
prehends the  reigns  of  the  Conqueror  and  Rufiis,  and  the  first 
twenty-two  years  of  Henry  the  First  (that  is,  from  a.d.  1066  to 
1122).  One  distinction  belonging  to  Eadmer's  narrative  is  the 
nearly  entire  absence  of  miracles.  He  probably  considered  it  im- 
proper to  introduce  such  high  matter  into  a  composition  which  did 
not  profess  to  be  of  a  sacred  or  spiritual  nature.  Much  of  his 
work,  however,  is  occupied  with  ecclesiastical  transactions,  which 
indeed  formed  almost  the  entire  home  politics,  and  no  small  part 
of  the  foreign  poHtics  also,  of  that  age.  He  has  in  particular  en- 
tered largely  into  the  great  controversy  between  the  crown  and 
the  pope  about  mvestiture  ;  and  one  of  the  most  curious  parts  of 
his  history  is  a  long  and  detailed  account  which  he  gives  of  his  own 
appointment  to  the  bishopric  of  St.  Andrew's  in  Scotland,  and  his 
contest  about  his  consecration  with  the  stout  Scottish  king,  Alex- 
ander I.  Mabillon  has  published  a  life  of  St.  Wilfi'id,  by  Eadmer, 
in  the  Acta  Sanctorum  Benedictinorum  (Saec.  iii.  part  i.)  ;  and 
other  tracts  by  him  are  in  the  Angha  Sacra. 


TURCOT,    AND    SIMEON    OF    DURHAM.— JOHN    OF    HEXHAM, 
AND   RICHARD   OF   HEXHAM. 

Eadmer's  immediate  predecessor  in  the  see  of  St.  Andrew's  was 
Turgot,  who  had  been  a  monk  of  Durham  before  he  was  elevated 
to  the  primacy  of  Scotland  in  1109.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting 
composition  that  we  have  from  the  pen  of  Turgot  is  a  life  of  Mal- 
colm Canmore's  queen,  Margaret,  the  sister  of  Edgar  Atheling, 
w  liose  confessor  he  was :  it  was  drawn  up  at  the  request  of  hei 


AILRED.  103 

daughter  Maud,  wife  of  K^iig  Henry  I.,  and  is  printed  in  the  Acta 
Sanctonim  of  the  Bollandists.^  Selden,  in  his  learned  Preface  to 
the  Decern  Scriptores,  has  advanced  strong  reasons  for  beheving 
that  the  History  of  the  Church  of  Durham  which  passes  under 
the  name  of  Simeon  Dimelmensis,  and  which  that  monk  appears 
to  have  pubhshed  as  his  own,  was  really  written  by  Turgot ;  but 
this  view  has  been  disputed  in  a  disquisition  by  Thomas  Reed, 
which  accompanies  an  edition  of  the  History  published  at  London 
u:  an  octavo  volume  in  1732  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Bedford.  It  is 
in  four  books,  and  extends  over  the  time  from  a.  d.  635  to  1095. 
This  History,  along  with  a  continuation  to  a.  d.  1154,  and  a  His- 
tory of  St.  Cuthbert,  an  Epistle  respecting  the  Archbishops  of 
York,  a  tract  on  the  siege  of  Durham  by  the  Scots  in  969,  and  a 
history  of  English  affairs,  entitled  De  Regibus  Anglorum  et  Daco- 
rum,  from  a.  D.  616  to  1129,  which,  for  anything  that  is  known, 
are  really  by  Simeon,  are  all  in  Twysden's  Collection ;  and  the 
English  History  to  a.  d.  957  is  in  the  Monumenta.  The  latter, 
which  is  in  the  form  of  compendious  annals,  is  continued  to  1154, 
by  John,  prior  of  Hexham  (Joannes  Hagustaldensis),  whose 
Chronicle  is  likewise  in  Twysden  ;  as  are  also  two  books  of  Lives 
of  the  Bishops  of  Hexham,  and  an  historical  fi-agment  on  the 
reign  of  Stephen  from  1135  to  1139,  including  a  narrative  of  the 
battle  of  the  Standard,  by  his  successor  Prior  Richard,  together 
with  a  short  poem  in  rhyming  Latin  verses  on  that  battle  by 
Serlo,  a  monk  of  Fountain  Abbey  in  Yorkshire. 


AILRED. 


But  the  best  accoimt  we  have  of  the  battle  of  the  Standard  is 

that  of  Ailred,  abbot  of  Rievault,  in  Yorkshire,  —  Ailredi  Abbatis 

Rievallensis  Historia  de  Bello  Standardii,  —  also  printed  among  the 

Scriptores  X.,  along  with  an  Epistle  on   the    Genealogy  of  the 

English  Kings,  a  Life  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  and  a  singular 

1  Acta  Sanct.  Junii,  pp.  328-535.  Papebroch,  the  editor,  has  printed  the  tract, 
on  the  authority  of  the  MS.  he  used,  as  the  work  of  an  unknown  monk  of  the 
name  of  Theodoric;  but  Lord  Hailes  has  adduced  sufficient  reasons  for  beheving 
it  to  be  by  Turgot  to  whom  it  is  ascribed  by  Fordun.  See  his  Annals  of  Scotland; 
i.  36,  37  (edit,  of  1819). 


104  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

relation,  entitled  De  Quodam  Miraculo  Mii'abili,  all  by  the  same 
writer.  Ailred,  Ealred,  Elred,  Alured,  Adilred,  Ethelred,  or 
Valred,  who  is  supposed  to  have  died  about  1166,  and  who  is  one 
of  the  saints  of  the  Roman  calendar  (his  day  is  the  12th  of  Jan- 
uai'y),  spent  his  life  in  studious  retirement,  and  is  the  author  of 
many  other  treatises,  some  printed  in  various  collections,  some  still 
remaining  in  manuscript.^  But  those  that  have  been  mentioned 
are  the  only  ones  that  relate  to  Enghsh  history.  He  often  wnites 
with  considerable  animation,  and  a  decided  gift  of  popular  elo- 
quence may  be  discerned  in  his  fluent  though  not  very  classical 
Latin. 


GEOFFREY   OF   MONMOUTH.  — ALFRED   OF   BEVERLEY. 

The  famous  British  History  of  Geoffrey  of  ]\'lonmouth  was 
printed  at  Paris,  in  4to.,  m  loOS^aiid'againliT  1S09,  and  it  is  also 
contained  m  Commeline's  Collection,  folio,  Heidelberg,  1587.  It 
professes  to  be,  and,  as  already  intimated,  in  all  probability  is  in 
the  main,  a  translation  fi'om  a  Welsh  Chronicle,  given  to  Geoffrey 
by  his  fi'iend  Walter,  archdeacon  of  Oxford  (a  different  person 
from  Walter  Mapes,  the  poet,  though  they  have  been  usually  con- 
founded), who  had  procured  the  manuscript  in  Brittany.  It  con- 
tains in  nine  books  the  history  of  the  Britons,  or  Welsh,  fi'om  the 
era  of  their  leader  Brutus,  the  great-grandson  of  the  Trojan 
JEneas,  to  the  death,  in  688,  of  their  king  Cadwallo,  or  Cadwal- 
lader,  the  same  ])ersonage  called  by  the  English  historians  Cead- 
wall,  or  Ceadwalla,  and  represented  by  them  as  King  of  Wessex. 
Geoffrey,  archdeacon  of  Monmouth,  and  afterwards  bishop  of  St. 
Asaph,  is  a  clever  and  agreeable  writer,  and  his  Latin  is  much 
more  scholarly  than  that  of  tlie  generality  of  the  monkish  chroni- 
clers of  his  time.  His  work,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  his- 
torical value,  has  at  least  the  merit  of  having  preserved  the  old 
legends  and  traditions  of  the  race  who  were  driven  out  by  the 
Angles  and  Saxons  in  a  more  complete  and  consistent  form  than 
ue  have  them  elsewhere.     But  the  outline  of  the  same  story  in 

1  'VUe  fulk'st  and  most  accurate  accounts  of  tlic  writings  of  Ailred  are  in  the 
llionraphical  Dictionary  of  tlie  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge,  and 
in  Mr.  Wright's  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  187-196. 


ALFRED   OF   BEVERLEY.  105 

all  its  parts,  from  the  Trojan  descent  to  the  V/ays  of  Arthur,  is 
found  in  Nennius,  who  lived  and  wrote  certainly  not  later  than 
the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  or  nearly  three  centuries  before 
Geoffrey.  The  archdeacon  of  Monmouth,  therefore,  was  at  any 
rate  not  the  inventor  of  the  fables,  if  they  be  svich,  to  which  his 
name  has  been  generally  attached.  At  the  most  he  can  only  be 
suspected  of  having  sometimes  expanded  and  embellished  them. 
Bvit,  if  not  the  creator  of  Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table,  Geoffrey  was  their  reviver  from  almost  universal  oblivion 
to  sudden  and  universal  notoriety;  his  book,  published  probably 
about  1128,  and  dedicated  to  the  same  Earl  of  Gloucester  whom 
Malmesbury  chose  for  his  patron,  obtained  immediately  the  most 
wonderful  currency  and  acceptance  ;  and  from  the  date  of  its  ap- 
pearance we  find  a  new  inspiration,  derived  from  its  pages,  per- 
vading the  popular  literature  of  Europe.  Most  of  the  subsequent 
Latin  chroniclers  also  adopt  more  or  less  of  his  new  version  of  oui' 
early  history.  An  English  translation  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth 
by  Aaron  Thompson,  originally  published  in  an  8vo.  vohime  at 
London  in  1718,  was  reprmted  in  1842,  as  "revised  by  J.  A. 
Giles,  LL.  D. ;  "  and  it  is  included  by  Dr.  Giles  in  his  volume 
entitled  Six  Old  English  Chronicles  (Bohn),  1848.  A  detailed 
analysis  of  Geoffrey's  work  is  given  by  the  late  George  Ellis  in  his 
Specimens  of  Early  English  Metrical  Romances. 

The  compendium  of  Alfred,  Aired,  or  Alured,  canon  of  the  col- 
legiate church  of  St.  John  at  Beverley,  in  Yorkshire,  published  by 
Hearne,  in  8vo.,  at  Oxford,  in  1716,  under  the  title  of  Ahiredi 
Beverlacensis  Annales,  sive  Historia  de  Gestis  Regum  Britannige, 
Libris  IX.,  comes  down  to  the  year  1129,  but  is  in  the  first  five 
books  (making  half  the  work,  Avhich  consists  only  of  152  pages 
altogether)  a  mere  abridgment  of  Geoffi'ey  of  Monmouth.  Akired, 
in  fact,  though  he  does  not  expressly  name  the  archdeacon,  sets  out 
with  stating  that  his  design  simply  is  to  epitomize  the  new  History 
of  the  Britons,  which  everybody  was  so  eager  to  read,  and  of 
which  he  had  himself  for  some  time  in  vain  sought  to  procure  a 
copy  ;  a  fact  wdiich  is  strangely  suppressed  both  by  Hearne  and 
by  Dr.  Campbell  in  the  Biographia  Britannica,  in  their  at- 
tempts to  show  that  Alured  did  not  copy  Geoffrey,  but  Geoffi'ey 
him.  Geoffrey's  very  expressions  are  sometimes  adopted  by 
Alured.  What  the  latter  has  added  in  the  continuation  of  the 
history  down  to  his  own  time  contains  scarcely  anything  not  to  be 

VOL.  I.  14 


106  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

found  elsewhere.  The  period  from  the  Norman  Conquest,  extend- 
ing over  sixty-two  years,  which  may  probably  have  been  about  that 
of  his  own  life,  is  all  comprised  in  the  last  book,  filUng  twenty-seven 
pages. 


GIRALDUS    CAMBRENSIS. 

GiRALDUS  Cambrensis,  another  learned  Welshman,  who  makes 
a  principal  figure  among  our  historical  writers  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, is  of  somewhat  later  date  than  his  countryman  Geoffi'ey  of 
Monmouth  :  —  Geoffrey  died  in  1154  ;  Giraldus,  whose  proper 
Welsli  name  was  Gerald  Barry,  appears  to  have  been  born  about 
1146.  His  Itinerary  and  Description  of  Wales  (the  first  book)  — ■ 
Itinerarium  Cambriae  and  Descriptio  Cambriae  —  were  published, 
with  learned  annotations,  by  Dr.  David  Powell,  in  a  12mo.  vol- 
ume, at  London,  in  1685  ;  both  are  included  in  Camden's  Anglica, 
Normannica,  &c.,  together  with  his  Topography  and  Conquest  of 
Ireland,  —  Topographia  Hibernije  and  Expugnatio  Hiberniie,  — 
there  published  for  the  first  time  ;  and  a  second  book  of  the  De- 
scription of  Wales,  various  biographies  of  Enghsh  bishops,  an  ac- 
count of  his  own  life,  entitled  De  Rebus  a  Se  Gestis,  in  three 
books,  together  with  two  separate  catalogues  of  his  works  drawn 
up  by  himself,  a  treatise  concerning  the  Church  of  St.  Asaph  (De 
Jure  et  Statu  ^lenevensis  Ecclesiai  Distinctiones  vii.),  and  two  or 
three  other  short  pieces,  are  in  the  second  volume  of  Wharton's 
Angha  Sacra.  An  English  translation  of  the  Itinerary  and  of  both 
parts  of  the  Description  of  Wales,  profusely  illuminated  with  en- 
gravings as  well  as  with  annotations  and  commentary,  was  pub- 
fished  by  Sir  Richard  Colt  Hoare,  Bart.,  in  two  vols.  4to.,  Lond. 
1806,  under  the  title  of  The  Itinerary  of  Archbishop  Baldwin 
through  Wales,  a.  d.  1187,  by  Giraldus  de  Barri,  and  forms  one 
of  the  most  magnificent  productions  of  the  modem  English  press.^ 
Many  other  writings,  however,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  are  attrib- 
uted to  him,  which  are  either  lost  (if  they  ever  existed),  or  re- 
jnain   in   manuscript,  with  the   exception  of  a  treatise,  called  by 

1  In  his  PrefHce,  Sir  Eicliard  seems  to  state  that  he  had  also  reprinted  the  Itiner. 
ary  and  Description  of  Wales  in  the  original  Latin,  but  we  have  never  seen  the 
book. 


HENRY  OF  HUNTINGDON.  107 

himself  Gemma  Ecclesiastica,  which  is  said  to  have  been  prmteo 
at  Mentz  without  liis  name  in  1549  under  the  title  of  Gemm^ 
AnimEe.  Giraldus,  though  his  otyle  abounds  m  the  conceits  and 
false  ornaments  which  constituted  the  eloquence  of  his  time,  is  a 
very  lively  writer,  and  he  shows  a  genius  both  for  narrative  and 
description  to  which  nothing  is  wanting  except  the  influences  of  a 
happier  age.  In  literary  ardor  and  industry,  at  least,  he  has  not  often 
been  surpassed.  He  "  deserves  particular  regard,"  says  Warton, 
"  for  the  universality  of  his  works,  many  of  which  are  written  with 
some  degree  of  elegance.  He  abounds  with  quotations  of  the  best 
Latin  poets.  He  was  an  historian,  an  antiquary,  a  topographer,  a 
divine,  a  philosopher,  and  a  poet.  His  love  of  science  was  so  great 
that  he  refused  two  bishoprics  ;  and  from  the  midst  of  public  busi- 
ness, with  which  his  political  talents  gave  him  a  considerable  con- 
nection in  the  court  of  Richard  the  First,  he  retired  to  Lincoln  for 
seven  years  with  a  design  of  pursuing  theological  studies."  ^  The 
fancy  of  Giraldus,  however,  it  must  be  confessed,  was  more  vigor- 
ous than  either  his  judgment  or  his  veracity ;  and  much  of  the 
matter  in  his  historical  works  would  have  suited  poetry  better  than 
history. 


HENRY   OF   HUNTINGDON. 

Malmesbury's  two  Histories  are  followed  in  Savile's  Collection 
by  the  Eight  Books  of  that  of  Henry,  archdeacon  of  Himtingdon, 
extendino;  from  the  invasion  of  Julius  Caesar  to  the  accession  of 
Henry  IL  (a.  d.  1154).  The  work  has  not  been  elsewhere  prmted 
in  full ;  but  a  very  superior  text  of  the  first  Six  Books,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Third,  which  is  only  an  abridgment  of  Bede,  is 
given  by  Mr.  Petrie  in  the  Monumenta,  1848.  Henry  of  Hun- 
tingdon first  distinguished  himself  as  a  poet,  and  is  said  by  Leland 
to  have  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  Hfe  written  eight  books  of  Latin 
epigrams,  and  eight  more  of  love  verses,  besides  a  long  didactic 
poem  on  herbs,  another  on  spices,  and  a  third  on  precious  stones. 
His  History,  which  he  composed  in  his  more  advanced  years,  is 
interspersed  with  a  good  deal  of  verse,  most  of  it  professing  to  be 
quoted,  but  some  of  it  confessedly  his  own.  Savile  describes  him 
1  Dissertation  on  Intro-i.  of  Learning,  p.  cxxiv. 


108  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

as,  in  respect  of  historical  merit,  although  separated  by  a  long  in- 
terval from  IMalmesbury,  yet  making  as  near  an  approach  to  him 
as  any  other  writer  of  the  time,  and  as  deserving  to  be  placed  in 
the  first  rank  of  the  most  dihgent  explorers  and  most  truthful  ex- 
pounders of  the  times  preceding  their  own.  He  is,  indeed,  more 
of  an  antiquary  than  an  historian.  His  work,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a 
history  of  his  own  time,  is  of  httle  importance.  The  writer  in  the 
Quarterly  Review,  however,  remarks  that  it  is  a  more  ambitious 
attempt  than  had  been  made  by  such  mere  annalists  as  the  Saxon 
chroniclers  on  the  one  hand,  or  such  compilers  as  Florence  of 
Worcester  and  Simeon  of  Durham  on  the  other.  "  Abandoning 
the  sunple  plan  of  his  predecessors,  he  divided  his  History  into 
books,  treating  distinctly  upon  each  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  Hep- 
tarchy, until  their  union  under  Edgar.  Huntingdon  states  that, 
taking  Bede  as  his  basis,  he  added  much  from  other  sources,  and 
borrowed  from  the  chronicles  which  he  found  in  ancient  Hbraries. 
His  descriptions  of  battles  are  often  more  diffuse  than  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  chronicles.  It  has  been  supposed  that,  because  these  scenes 
and  pictures  are  not  warranted  by  the  existing  texts,  they  are  mere 
historical  amplifications  ;  but  we  find  no  difficulty  in  believing  that 
the  researches  of  a  writer  who  was  considered  as  a  most  learned 
antiquarian  should  have  enabled  liim  to  discover  a  chronicle  lost  to 
us,  and  which  contained  more  fi-agments  of  poetry  or  poetical  prose 
than  the  chronicles  which  have  been  preserved."  ^  The  second 
volume  of  Wharton's  Angha  Sacra  contains  a  Long  Letter  fi'om 
Henry  of  Huntingdon  to  his  friend  Walter,  abbot  of  Ramsay  (De 
Episcopis  Sui  Temporis),  which  is  full  of  interesting  notices  and 
anecdotes  of  the  kings,  prelates,  and  other  distinguished  person- 
ages of  his  time.  Both  the  History  and  this  Letter  are  translated 
by  Mr.  Forester  in  one  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiquarian 
Library,  1853. 


ROGER  DE  HOVEDEN. 


The  next  work  printed  in  Savile's  Collection  (and  his  edition  is 
again  our  only  one)  is  the  copious  Chronicle  of  Roger  de  Hoveden 

1  Quarterly  Review,  xxxiv.,  283. 


WILLIAM   OF   NEWBURGH.  109 

(probably  so  designated  from  having  been  a  native  of  Hoveden,  or 
Howden,  in  Yorkshire).  It  fills  430  pages,  or  not  much  less  than 
half  the  volume.  Hoveden  takes  up  the  narrative  at  the  year  732, 
where  the  History  of  Bede  (a  north-country  man  like  himself) 
ends,  and  brings  it  down  to  1202.  His  account  is  particularly  foil 
throughout  the  reigns  of  Henry  II.  and  Richard  I.,  and  the  com- 
mencement of  that  of  John,  making  together  what  may  be  called 
his  own  half-century.  The  greater  portion,  indeed,  of  the  340 
pages  of  which  this  second  or  latter  part  of  his  annals  —  Annalium 
Pars  Posterior  —  consists,  is  occupied  by  letters  of  kings,  popes, 
and  prelates,  and  other  public  documents ;  but  it  contains  also  an 
extraordinary  number  of  minute  historical  details.  Hoveden  is  of 
all  our  old  chroniclers  the  most  of  a  matter-of-fact  man ;  he  in 
dulges  occasionally  in  an  epithet,  rarely  or  never  in  a  reflection  : 
his  one  notion  of  writing  history  seems  to  be  to  pack  as  many  par- 
ticulars as  possible  into  a  given  space,  giving  one  the  notion  in 
perusing  his  close  array  of  dates  and  items  that  he  had  felt  con- 
tinually pressed  by  the  necessity  of  economizing  his  paper  or  parch- 
ment. It  is  true  that  he  has  no  notion  of  the  higher  economy  of 
discrimination  and  selection ;  but  among  the  multitude  of  ficts  of 
all  kinds  that  crowd  his  pages  are  many  that  are  really  curious  and 
illustrative.  A  translation  of  Roger  de  Hoveden  by  Mr.  Henry 
T.  Riley  makes  two  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library 
1853. 


WILLIAM    OF   NEWBURGH. 

William  of  Newburgh  (in  Latin  Gulielmus  Neubrigensis),  so 
called  fl-om  the  monastery  of  Newburgh,  in  Yorkshire,  to  which  he 
belonged,  —  although  his  proper  name  is  said  to  have  been  Little, 
whence  he  sometimes  designates  himself  Petit,  or  Parvus,  —  has 
had  the  luck  to  have  the  five  books  of  his  English  History  from  the 
Conquest  to  the  year  1197  repeatedly  printed ;  first,  in  12mo.,  at 
Antwerp  in  1597  ;  a  second  time,  with  notes  by  J.  Picard,  in  8vo., 
at  Paris  in  1610  ;  again,  under  the  care  of  the  industrious  Thomas 
Hearne,  in  3  vols.  8vo.,  at  Oxford  in  1719  ;  and  still  once  more, 
as  edited  for  the  Historical  Society  by  Mr.  H.  C.  Hamilton,  in  2 
vols.,  in  1856.     It  is  also  in  the  collection  of  Jerome  Commelinus. 


110  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  work  of  Neubrigensis  is  much  more  what  we  now  understand 
by  a  history  than  those  of  either  Hoveden  or  Huntingdon  :  in  tlie 
superior  purity  of  its  Latinity  it  ranks  with  that  of  Malmesbury : 
and  it  has  the  same  comparatively  artistic  character  in  otlier  re- 
spects. But  his  merit  lies  rather  in  his  manner  than  in  his  matter  ; 
he  has  disposed  the  chief  events  of  the  times  of  wliich  he  treats 
into  a  regular  and  readable  narrative,  but  has  not  contributed  many 
new  facts.  He  is  famous  as  liaving  been,  so  far  as  is  known,  the 
first  writer  after  Geoffi*ey  of  Monmouth  who  refused  to  adopt  the 
story  of  the  Trojan  descent  of  the  old  Britons,  and  the  other  "  fig- 
ments," as  he  calls  them,  of  the  Welsh  historians,  which  moreover 
he  accuses  Geoffrey  of  having  made  still  more  absurd  and  mons- 
trous by  his  own  "  impudent  and  impertinent  lies."  Whether  he 
knew  enough  of  the  original  chronicle  which  Geoffrey  professed  to 
translate,  or  of  the  language  in  which  it  Avas  written,  to  be  entitled 
to  express  an  opinion  upon  this  latter  point,  does  not  appear.  The 
Welsh  maintain  that  he  had  a  personal  spite  at  their  Avhole  nation : 
"  This  William,"  says  Dr.  Powell,  "  put  in  for  the  bishopric  of  St. 
Asaph  upon  the  death  of  the  said  Geoffrey,  and,  being  disappointed, 
fell  into  a  mad  humor  of  decrying  the  whole  principality  of  Wales, 
its  history,  antiquity,  and  all  that  belongs  to  it."  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted, too,  that,  if  not  guilty  of  the  same  dishonesty  and  forgery 
which  he  imputes  to  Geoffrey,  William  of  Newburgh  is  himself,  in 
credulity  at  least,  a  match  for  the  most  fabulous  of  our  old  chroni- 
clers. 


BENEDICTUS   ABBAS.  — RALPH   DE   DICETO.  -  GERVASE    OF 
CANTERBURY. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  of  our  chronicles  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury is  that  of  the  Abbot  Benedict,  embracing  the  space  from  a.  d. 
1170  to  1192,  which  was  pulilished  by  Hearne,  in  2  vols.  8vo.,  at 
Oxford  in  17o.3,  under  the  title  of  Benedictus  Abbas  Petroburgon- 
Bis  de  Vita  et  Rebus  Gestis  Henrici  H.  et  Ricardi  I.  Benedirt, 
thougli  a  partisan  of  Becket,  and  one  of  his  biographers,  avus  so 
highly  esteemed  by  Henry  II.,  Avho  had  both  the  eye  to  discern. 
and  the  magnanimity  to  appreciate  merit  and  abihty  wherever  they 
were  to  be  found,  tl^at  he  was  by  his  direction  elected  abbot  oi 


RALPH   DE   DICETO.  — GERVASE   OF   CANTERBURY.     Ill 

Peterborough  in  1177  ;  and  in  1191,  after  Richard  had  come  to 
the  throne,  he  was  advanced  to  be  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  in 
which  high   office  he  died  in  1193. 

Ralph  de  Diceto,  archdeacon  of  London,  who  probably  died  soon 
after  the  commencement  of  the  thirteenth  century,  is  the  author 
of  two  chronicles  :  the  first  entitled  Abbreviationes  Chronicorum, 
and  extending  from  a.  d.  589  to  1148  ;  the  second,  continuing  the 
narrative,  upon  a  larger  scale,  to  a.  d.  1199.  Both  are  published 
in  the  Collection  of  the  Scriptores  X.,  where  they  occupy  together 
not  quite  300  columns.  They  are  followed  by  a  brief  outline  of 
the  controversy  between  King  Henry  and  Becket,  —  Series  CausaB 
inter  Henricum  Regem  et  Thomam  Archiepiscopum,  —  which  may 
also  perhaps  have  been  drawn  up  by  Diceto.  A  compendium  of 
the  early  British  History  from  Brutus  to  the  death  of  Cadwallader, 
after  Geoffi-ey  of  Monmouth,  by  this  writer  (Historia  Compendiosa 
de  Regibus  Britonum),  is  given  in  his  collection  entitled  Scriptores 
XV.  by  Gale,  who  says  that  he  had  seen  a  better  manuscript  of 
the  Abbreviationes  Chronicorum  than  that  used  by  Twysden.  He 
adds  a  short  tract  of  two  or  three  pages  from  a  manuscript  in  the 
Arundel  Collection  (now  in  the  British  Museum)  entitled  De 
Partitione  Provincte  in  Schiras  et  Episcopatus  et  Regna,  which  he 
entitles  as  by  Diceto,  although  in  his  Preface  he  describes  it  as  by 
an  unknown  writer.  There  is  a  short  history  of  the  Archbishops 
of  Canterbury  to  the  year  1200  by  this  Diceto  in  the  second 
volume  of  Wharton's  Anglia  Sacra.  Bishop  Nicolson  complains 
of  it  as  not  only  of  little  value,  from  its  brevity,  but  as  "  stuffed 
Math  matters  foreign  to  the  purpose." 

The  Chronicle  of  Gervase  of  Canterbuiy,  —  Gervasii  Monachi 
Dorobernensis,  sive  Cantuarensis,  Chronica,  —  from  the  accession 
of  Henry  I.  in  A.  D.  1100  (or  1122,  as  he  reckons,  "  secundum 
Evangelium  ")  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Richard  I.  and  of  the 
century,  is  published  in  the  collection  of  the  Scriptores  X.  (col. 
1338-1628)  ;  together  with  three  shorter  pieces  by  the  same 
writer :  —  the  first,  an  account  of  the  burning,  a.  d.  1174,  and 
subsequent  restoration  of  Canterbury  Cathedral  (Tractatus  de 
Combustione  et  Reparatione  Dorobernensis  Ecclesise)  ;  the  second, 
on  the  contest  between  the  monks  of  Canterbury  and  Archbishop 
Baldwin  (Imaginationes  de  Discordiis  inter  Monachos  Cantuariensis 
et  Archiepiscopum  Baldwinum)  ;  the  third,  a  history  of  the  Arch- 
bishops of  Canterbury  (Actus  Pontificum  Cantuariensis  Ecclesia?) 


112  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

from  Augustine,  to  Hubert  Walter,  who  died  in  1205,  and  whom 
Gervase  prohahly  did  not  long  survive.  Leland,  who  gives  this 
writer  a  high  character  for  his  diligent  study  and  accurate  and  ex- 
tensive knowledge  of  the  national  antiquities,  speaks  of  his  History 
as  commencing  with  the  earliest  British  times,  and  including  the 
whole  of  the  Saxon  period  ("  tum  Britannorum  ab  origine  histo- 
riam,  turn  Saxonum  et  Normannorum  fortia  facta,  deduxit ").  He 
takes  great  pains  in  the  portion  we  have  of  it  to  present  a  correct 
and  distinct  chronology ;  but  it  is  principally  occupied  with  ecclesi- 
astical affairs. 


VINSAUF.  -  RICHARD   OF   DEVISES.  —  JOSCELIN   DE 
BRAKELONDA. 

An  account  of  the  expedition  of  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  to  the 
Holy  Land,  in  six  books,  by  Geoffrey  Vinsauf,  has  been  pubhshed, 
under  the  title  of  Itinerarium  Regis  Anglorum  Richardi,  et  aliorum, 
in  terram  Hierosolymonim,  by  Gale  in  his  Scriptores  Quinque  (pp. 
245-429).  A  portion  of  the  same  work  had  been  previously 
printed  by  Bongarsius  in  his  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos,  1611,  as  a 
fragment  of  the  History  of  Jerusalem  (Hierosolimitaufe  Historiae 
Fragmentum)  fi'om  A..  D.  1171  to  1190,  by  an  vinknown  writer, 
prol)ably  an  Englishman.  There  is  a  translation  of  the  whole  in  the 
volume  of  Bolm's  Antiquarian  Lib  ary  entitled  Chronicles  of  the 
Ciiisaders.  Geoffi'ey,  or  Walter,  Vinsauf,  or  Vinisauf,  or  Vinesalf 
(in  Latin  de  Vino  Salvo),  Avas  an  Englishman  by  birth,  although 
of  Norman  parentage,  and  accompanied  Richard  on  his  crusade. 
His  prose  is  spirited  and  eloquent,  and  he  was  also  one  of  the  best 
Ijatin  poets  of  his  day.  His  principal  poetical  work,  entitled  De 
Nova  Poetria  (On  the  New  Poetry),  has  been  several  times  print- 
ed :  it  "  is  dedicated,"  Warton  observes,  "  to  Pope  Innocent  the 
Third,  and  its  intention  was  to  recommend  and  illustrate  the  new 
and  legitimate  mode  of  versification  which  had  lately  begun  to 
flourish  in  Europe,  in  opposition  to  the  Leonine  or  barbarous 
species."  This  work,  puljlished  soon  after  the  death  of  King 
Richard,  contains  an  elaborate  lamentation  over  that  event,  which 
is  quoted  in  what  is  called  Bromton's  Chronicle  ^  (written  in  the 

1  In  the  Scriptores  X.  col.  1280.    The  author's  name  is  misprinted  Galfridus  de 
Nino  Salvo. 


JOSCELIN  DE  BRAKELONDA.  113 

reign  of  Edward  III.),  and,  as  both  Camden  ^  and  Selden^  have 
noted,  is  referred  to  by  Chaucer  in  his  Canterbury  Tales,^  although 
only  the  latter  seems  to  have  understood  the  delicate  ridicule  of 
the  allusion.  The  "  craft  of  Galfride  "  (so  he  names  Vinsauf )  is 
also  celebrated  by  the  great  English  poet,  apparently  with  much 
less  irreverence,  in  his  Court  of  Love,*  no  doubt  composed  at  a 
much  less  advanced  period  of  his  life. 

Another  valuable  contemporary  history  of  the  early  part  of  .the 
reign  of  Richard  the  First  (from  a.  d.  1189  to  1192),  comprehend- 
ing the  transactions  in  England  as  well  as  abroad,  the  Chronicle 
of  Richard  of  Devises,  has  been  printed  for  the  first  time  by  the 
Historical  Society: — Chronicon  Ricardi  DiAasiensis  de  Rebus  Ges- 
tis  Ricardi  Primi,  Regis  Anglias ;  nunc  primum  typis  mandatum, 
curante  Josepho  Stevenson  ;  —  8vo.  Lon.  1838.  Divisiensis  ap- 
pears to  have  written  before  either  Diceto  or  Hoveden,  and  his 
work  forms  therefore  an  authority  additional  to  and  quite  inde- 
pendent of  theirs. 

Finally,  we  ought  not  to  omit  to  mention  the  singularly  curious 
Chronicle  of  Joscelin  de  Brakelonda,  printed  a  few  years  ago  by 
the  Camden  Society,  —  Chronica  Jocelini  de  Brakelonda,  de  Rebus 
Gestis  Samsonis  Abbatis  Monasterii  Sancti  Edmundi ;  nunc  primum 
typis  mandata,  curante  Johanne  Gage  Rokewode ;  4to.  Lon.  1840, 
—  which,  although  professing  to  record  only  the  acts  of  Abbot 
Samson  and  the  history  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Edmondsbury, 
includes  also  several  notices  of  the  public  aflPairs  of  the  kingdom, 
as  well  as  lets  us  see  farther  into  the  system  of  English  life  and 
society  in  that  remote  time  than  perhaps  any  other  record  that  has 
come  down  to  us.  It  embraces  the  space  from  1173  to  1202,  com- 
prehending the  last  sixteen  years  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II, ,  the 
whole  of  that  of  Richard  I.,  and  the  first  three  years  of  that  of 
John ;  and  it  contains  repeated  personal  notices  of  all  these  three 
kings.  Brakelonda's  Chronicle  has  been  translated  by  Mr.  T.  E. 
Tomlins  (8vo.  Lon.  1840)  ;  and  Mr.  Carlyle's  brilliant  resuscita- 
tion of  the  old  Abbot  and  his  century  in  his  Past  and  Present, 
1843,  lives  in  the  memory  of  most  readers  of  modern  English 
books. 

1  Remains,  7th  edit.,  p.  414.  ^  Nonne's  Preestis  Tale,  v.  15,353,  &c. 

2  Prsefat.  ad  Scriptores  X.,  p.  xli.  *  v.  11. 
VOL.   I.                                     15 


114  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


MONASTIC    REGISTERS. 

Among  the  contemporary  historical  monuments  of  this  age  are 
also  to  be  reckoned  parts  at  least  of  several  of  the  monastic  regis- 
ters, compiled  by  a  succession  of  writers,  which  have  been  pub- 
lished ;  —  such  as  that  of  Melrose,  extending  from  a.  d.  735  to  1270 
(in  Fulman,  1684,  and  mvich  more  carefully  edited  by  Mr.  Steven- 
son for  the  Bannatyne  Club,  4to.  1835)  ;  that  of  Margan,  from 
1066  to  1232  (in  Gale,  1687)  ;  that  of  Waverley,i  from  1066  to 
1291  (in  the  same  collection)  ;  those  of  Ramsay  and  Ely,  both,  as 
far  as  printed,  coming  down  to  the  Conquest  (the  former  in  Gale, 
1691,  the  latter  in  the  same  collection,  and  also,  in  part,  in  the 
second  Seculum  of  Mabillon's  Acta  Sanctoi-um  Benedictinorum)  ; 
that  of  Ely  by  the  Priors  Thomas  and  Richard,  from  a.  d.  156  to 
1169  (in  Wharton's  Anglia  Sacra)  ;  those  of  Holyrood,  from  a.  d. 
596  to  1163,  and  of  Abingdon,  from  870  to  1131,  and  the  History 
of  the  Bishops  and  Church  of  Durham  from  a.  d.  633  to  1214  (all 
in  the  same  collection).  A  new  and  much  improved  edition  of 
that  of  Holyrood  was  brought  out  in  1828  for  the  Bannatyne  Club 
by  the  late  Mr.  R.  Pitcairn.  To  these  may  be  added  some  of  the 
tracts  relating  to  the  great  monastery  of  Peterborough  in  Sparke's 
collection ;  and  several  lives  of  prelates  by  Malmesbury,  Goscelin 
of  Cantei-bury,  Osbern,  John  of  Salisbury,  Eadmer,  &c.,  in  Whar- 
ton. Tlie  Annals  of  the  Monastery  of  Burton,  in  Staffordshire, 
from  A.  D.  1004  to  1263,  and  the  continuation  of  the  History  of 
England  from  1149  to  1470  (both  in  Fulman),  appear  to  be 
throughout  compilations  of  a  later  date.  The  venerable  collection 
of  ancient  monuments  relating  to  the  church  of  Rochester  and 
the  kingdom  of  Kent,  entitled  the  Textus  Roffensis,  which  was 
publislied  by  Hearne,  in  8vo.,  at  Oxford  in  1720,  was  drawn  up  by 
Bishop  Ernulphus,  who  presided  over  the  see  of  Rochester  from 
A.D.  1115  till  his  death  in  1124  ;  and  Heming's  Chartulary  of  the 
Churclj  of  Worcester,  —  Hemingi  Chartularium  Ecclesiaj  Wigor- 
niensis,  —  published  by  Hearne  in  two  vols.  8vo.  in  1723,  is  of  still 
earlier  date,  having  been  compiled  in  the  reign  of  the  Conqueror. 

'  Tlio  passape,  however,  from  the  earlier  portion  of  the  Wavcrley  Annals,  which 
Gale  quotes  in  proof  of  the  writer  having  lived  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  is 
merely  a  translation  from  the  vernacular  Chronicle 


LAW   TREATISES.  — DOMESDAY  BOOK.  —  PUBLIC   ROLLS   AND 

REGISTERS. 

We  may  close  the  account  of  the  numerous  historical  writings 
of  the  first  century  and  a  half  after  the  Conquest  by  merely  no- 
ticing, that  to  the  same  period  belong  the  earliest  work  on  the 
common  law  of  England,  the  Tractatus  de  Legibus  et  Consuetu- 
dinibus  Angli^e,  commonly  ascribed  to  the  chief  justiciary  Ranulf 
de  Glanvil,  which  was  first  printed,  in  4to.,  at  London  in  1673,  and 
of  which  there  is  an  English  translation,  with  notes,  by  Mr.  John 
Beanies,  8vo.  Lon.  1812 ;  the  Liber  Niger,  or  Black  Book  of  the 
Exchequer,  supposed  to  have  been  compiled  by  Gervase  of  Til- 
bury (Gervasius  Tilburiensis),  who,  according  to  some  authorities, 
was  a  nephew  of  King  Henry  IL,  of  which  there  is  an  edition  by 
Hearne,  2  vols.  Svo.  Oxford,  1728,  reprinted  at  London  in  1771 ; 
and  the  Dialogus  de  Scaccario,  or  Dialogue  respecting  the  Ex- 
chequer, probably  written  by  Richard  Fitz-Nigel,  or  Fitz-Neale, 
bishop  of  London,  from  a.  d.  1189  to  1198,  which  is  printed  at  the 
end  of  Madox's  History  of  the  Exchequer,  4to.  Lon.  1711,  and 
again  2  vols.  4to.  1769 ;  and  of  which  there  is  an  English  transla- 
tion, 4to.  Lon.  1756.  Along  with  these  text-books  of  Enghsh  law 
may  be  noticed  the  book  of  the  laws  and  legal  usages  of  the  Duchy 
of  Normandy,  called  the  Coutumes  de  Normandie,  of  which  there 
are  editions  of  1681,  1684,  1694,  and  1709,  all  printed  at  Rouen, 
and  each  in  2  volumes  folio.  It  hardly  belongs  to  our  subject  to 
mention  the  most  venerable  of  all  national  registers,  the  Domesday 
Book  of  the  Conqueror,  printed  at  London  in  1783,  in  2  volumes, 
folio,  under  the  title  of  Domesday  Book,  seu  Liber  Censualis  VVil- 
lelmi  Primi  Regis  Angliifi  inter  Archivos  Regni  in  Domo  Capitu- 
lari  Westmonasterii  conservatus  ;  the  Indices  printed  in  1811,  and 
the  additional  volume  printed  in  1816  containing  the  Exon  Domes- 
day, the  Inquisitio  Eliensis,  the  Book  of  Winchester,  and  the 
Boldon  Book  ;  the  public  documents  appertaining  to  the  present 
period  in  the  Statutes  of  the  Realm,  the  Foedera,  the  Calendar  of 
Patent  Rolls  m  the  Tower,  the  Calendar  of  Rolls,  Charters,  and 
Inquisitions  Ad  Quod  Damnum,  the  Placitorum  Abbreviatio,  the 
Rotuli  Literarum  Patentium,  the  Rotuli  Literarum  Clausarum, 
the  Great  Rolls  of  the  Pipe  of  the  31st  of  Henry  I.  and  of  the 
3d  of  John,  the  Rotuli  Normanniae,  the  Rotuli  de  Oblatis  et  Fini- 


116  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

bus,  the  Fines  in  Curia  Domini  Regis,  the  Rotuli  Curias  Regis, 
the  Charter  Rolls  of  John,  the  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of 
England  from  JSthelbert  to  Henry  I.,  and  perliaps  one  or  two 
other  publications  of  the  late  Record  Commission ;  the  ConciHa 
of  Spelman,  and  of  Wilkins,  &c.      * 


THE  FRENCH  LANGUAGE  IN  ENGLAND. 

It  is  commonly  asserted  that  for  some  reigns  after  the  Norman 
Conquest  the  exclusive  language  of  government  and  legislation  in 
England  was  the  French,  —  that  all  pleadings,  at  least  in  the  su- 
preme courts,  were  carried  on  in  that  lang-uage,  —  and  that  in  it 
all  deeds  were  drawn  up  and  all  laws  promulgated.  "  This  popu- 
lar notion,"  observes  a  learned  living  Avriter,  "  cannot  be  easily 
supported.  .  .  .  Before  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  Ave  cannot  dis- 
cover a  deed  or  law  drawn  or  composed  in  French.  Instead  of 
prohibiting  the  English  language,  it  was  employed  by  the  Con- 
queror and  his  successors  in  their  charters  until  the  reign  of  Henry 
II.,  when  it  Avas  superseded,  not  by  the  French  but  by  the  Latin 
language,  AA^hich  had  been  gi-adually  gaining,  or  rather  regaining, 
groimd ;  for  the  charters  anterior  to  Alfred  are  inA'ariably  in 
Latin."  ^  So  far  Avas  the  Conqueror  from  shoAving  any  aversion 
to  the  English  language,  or  making  any  such  attempt  as  is  ascribed 
to  him  to  effect  its  abolition,  that,  according  to  Ordericus  Vitalis, 
Avhen  he  first  came  over  he  strenuously  applied  himself  to  learn  it 
for  the  special  purpose  of  understanding,  Avithout  the  aid  of  an 
interpreter,  the  causes  that  Avere  })leaded  before  him,  and  perse- 
vered in  that  endeavor  till  the  tumult  of  many  other  occupations, 
and  Avhat  the  historian  calls  "durior  astas  "  —  a  more  iron  time^  — 
of  necessity  compelled  him  to  give  it  up.^  The  common  statement 
r(ists  on  the  more  than  suspicious  authority  of  the  History  attrib- 
uted to  Ingulphus,  the  fabricator  of  Avhich,  in  his  loose  and  igno- 
rant account  of  the  matter,  has  set  doAvn  this  fiilsehood  along  with 

^  Sir  Francis  Palgrave,  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Commonwealth,  vol.  I 
p.  56. 
■^  Quid  nos  dura  rcfugimus  actas  1  —  Hor.  Od.  i.  85. 
*  Excerpta  ex  Libro  iv.  Orderioi  Vitalis,  p.  247 ;  edit.  Maseres. 


THE   FRENCH  LANGUAGE  IN   ENGLAND.  117 

some  other  things  that  are  true  or  probable.  Even  before  the 
Conquest,  the  Confessor  himself,  according  to  this  writer,  though  a 
native  of  England,  yet,  from  his  education  and  long  residence  in 
Normandy,  had  become  almost  a  Frenchman ;  and  when  he  suc- 
ceeded to  the  English  throne,  he  brought  over  with  him  great 
nmiibers  of  Normans,  whom  he  advanced  to  the  hiohest  dignities 
in  the  church  and  the  state.  "  Wherefore,"  it  is  added,  "  the 
whole  land  began,  under  the  influence  of  the  king  and  the  other 
Normans  introduced  by  him,  to  lay  aside  the  English  customs,  and 
to  imitate  the  manners  of  the  French  in  many  things ;  for  example, 
all  the  nobility  in  their  courts  began  to  speak  French  as  a  great 
piece  of  gentility,  to  draw  iip  their  charters  and  other  writings 
after  the  French  fashion,  and  to  grow  ashamed  of  their  old  national 
habits  in  these  and  many  other  particulars."  ^  Further  on  we  are 
told,  "  They  [the  Normans]  held  the  language  [of  the  natives]  in 
such  abhorrence  that  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  statutes  of  the 
EngHsli  kings  were  drawn  out  in  the  Gallic  [or  French]  tongue ; 
and  to  boys  in  the  schools  the  elements  of  grammar  were  taught 
in  French  and  not  in  English  ;  even  the  English  manner  of  writ- 
ing was  dropped,  and  the  French  manner  introduced  in  all  charters 
and  books."  ^  The  facts  are  more  correctly  given  by  other  old 
writers,  who,  although  not  contemporary  with  the  Conquest,  are 
probably  of  as  early  a  date  as  the  compiler  of  the  Croyland  His- 
tory. The  Dominican  friar  Robert  Holcot,  writing  in  the  earher 
part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  informs  us  that  there  was  then  no 
institution  of  children  in  the  old  English,  —  that  the  first  language 
they  learned  was  the  French,  and  that  through  that  tongue  they 
were  afterwards  taught  Latin ;  and  he  adds  that  this  was  a  prac- 
tice which  had  been  introduced  at  the  Conquest,  and  which  had 
continued  ever  since .^  About  the  middle  of  the  same  century 
Ranulf  Higden,  in  his  Polychronicon,  says,  as  the  passage  is  trans- 
lated by  Trevisa,  "  This  apayringe  (impairing)  of  the  birthe  tonge 
is  by  cause  of  tweye  thinges  ;  oon  is  for  children  in  scole,  aghenes 
(against)  the  usage  and  maner  of  alle  other  naciouns,  beth  (be) 
compelled  for  to  leve  her  (their)  owne  langage,  and  for  to  con- 

1  Ingulphi  Historia,  in  Savile,  895 ;  or  in  Fulman,  62.     The  translation,  which  is 
ufficiently  faithful,  is  Henry's. 

2  Id.  Savile,  1101  ;  Fulman,  71. 

^  Lect.  in  Libr.  Sapient.  Lect.  ii.    4to.  Paris,  1518 ;  as  referred  to  by  Warttn, 
Hist  Eng.  Poetry,  i.  6. 


118  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

strewe  her  lessouns  and  her  thingis  a  Frensche,  and  haveth  siththe 
(have  since)  that  the  Nonnans  come  first  into  England.  Also 
gentil  mennes  children  beth  ytaught  (be  taught)  for  to  speke 
Frensche  from  the  time  that  thei  beth  rokked  in  her  cradel,  and 
cunneth  (can)  speke  and  playe  witli  a  childes  brooche  ;  and  up- 
londish  (rustic)  men  wol  likne  hem  "self  (will  liken  themselves)  to 
gentilmen,  and  fondeth  (are  fond)  with  grete  bisynesse  for  to  speke 
Frensche,  for  to  be  the  more  ytold  of."  ^  The  teachers  in  the 
schools,  in  fact,  were  generally,  if  not  universally,  ecclesiastics  ; 
and  the  Conquest  had  Normanized  the  church  quite  as  much  as 
the  state.  Immediately  after  that  revolution  great  numbers  of 
foreigners  were  brought  over,  both  to  serve  in  the  parochial  cures 
and  to  fill  the  monasteries  that  now  began  to  multiply  so  rapidly. 
These  churchmen  must  have  been  m  constant  intercourse  with  the 
people  of  all  classes  in  various  capacities,  not  only  as  teachers  of 
youth,  but  as  the  instructors  of  their  parishioners  from  the  altar, 
and  as  holding  daily  and  hourly  intercourse  with  them  in  all  the 
relations  that  subsist  between  pastor  and  flock.  They  probably  in 
this  way  diffused  their  own  tono;ue  throuohout  the  land  of  their 
adoption  to  a  greater  extent  than  is  commonly  suspected.  We 
shall  have  occasion,  as  we  proceed,  to  mention  some  facts  which 
would  seem  to  imply  that  in  the  twelfth  century  the  French  lan- 
guage was  very  generally  familiar  to  the  middle  classes  in  Eng- 
land, at  least  in  the  great  towns.  It  was  at  any  rate  the  only 
language  spoken  for  some  ages  afVer  the  Conquest  by  our  kings, 
and  not  only  by  nearly  all  the  nobility,  but  by  a  large  proportion 
even  of  the  inferior  landed  proprietors,  most  of  whom  also  were 
of  Norman  birth  or  descent.  Ritson,  in  his  rambling,  incoherent 
Dissertation  on  Romance  and  Minstrelsy,  prefixed  to  his  Ancient 
English  Metrical  Romances,  has  collected,  but  not  in  the  most 
satisfactoiy  manner,  some  of  the  evidence  we  have  as  to  the 
speech  of  the  first  Norman  kings.  He  does  not  notice  what  Or- 
dericus  Vitalis  tells  us  of  the  Conqueror's  meritorious  attempt, 
which  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have  been  more  successful  than 
such  experiments  on  the  part  of  grown-up  gentlemen  usually  are ; 
St)  that  he  may  be  allowed  to  be  correct  enough  in  the  assertior 
with  which  he  sets  out,  that  we  have  no  information  "  that  William 
the   Bastard,  his  son  Rufus,  his  daughter  Maud,  or  his  nephew 

1  Quoted  from   MS.  Harl.  1900,  by  Tyrwhitt,  in  Essay  on  tlie  Language  and 
Versification  of  Chaucer,  prefi.xed  to  liis  edition  of  the  Canterbury  Tales. 


THE   FRENCH   LANGUAGE   IN   ENGLAND.  119 

Stephen,  did  or  could  speak  the  Anglo-Saxon  or  English  lan- 
guage." Reference  is  then  made  to  a  story  told  in  what  is  called 
Brompton's  Chronicle  respecting  Henry  II.,  which,  however,  is 
not  very  intelligible  in  all  its  parts,  though  Ritson  has  slurred  over 
the  difficulties.  As  Henry  was  passing  through  Wales,  the  old 
chronicler  relates,  on  his  return  from  Ireland  in  the  spring  of  1172, 
he  found  himself  on  a  Sunday  at  the  castle  of  Cardiff,  and  stopped 
there  to  hear  mass ;  after  which,  as  he  was  proceeding  to  mount 
his  horse  to  be  off  again,  there  presented  itself  before  him  a  some- 
what singular  apparition,  a  man  with  red  hair  and  a  round  ton- 
sure,^ lean  and  tall,  attired  in  a  white  tunic  and  barefoot,  who, 
addressing  him  in  the  Teutonic  tongue,  began,  "  Gode  Olde 
Kinge,"  ^  and  proceeded  to  deliver  a  command  from  Christ,  as  he 
said,  and  his  mother,  from  John  the  Baptist  and  Peter,  that  he 
should  suffer  no  traffic  or  servile  works  to  be  done  throughout  his 
dominions  on  the  Sabbath-day,  except  only  such  as  pertained  to 
the  use  of  food ;  "  which  command,  if  thou  observest,"  concluded 
the  speaker,  "  whatever  thou  mayest  undertake  thou  shalt  happily 
accomplish."  The  king  immediately,  speaking  in  French,  desired 
the  soldier  who  held  the  bridle  of  his  horse  to  ask  the  rustic  if  he 
had  dreamed  all  this.  The  soldier  made  the  inquiry,  as  desired, 
in  English  ;  and  then,  it  is  added,  the  man  replied  in  the  same  lan- 
guage as  before,  and  addressing  the  king  said,  "  Whether  I  have 
dreamed  it  or  no,  mark  this  day ;  for,  unless  thou  shalt  do  what  I 
have  told  thee,  and  amend  thy  life,  thou  shalt  within  a  year's  time 
hear  such  news  as  thou  shalt  mourn  to  the  day  of  thy  death." 
And,  having  so  spoken,  the  man  vanished  out  of  sight.  With  the 
calamities  which  of  course  ensued  to  the  doomed  king  we  have 
here  nothing  to  do.  Although  the  chronicler  reports  only  the 
three  commencing  words  of  the  prophet's  first  address  in  what  he 
calls  the  Teutonic  tongue,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  we  conceive, 
that  the  rest,  though  here  translated  into  Latin,  was  also  delivei-ed 
in  the  same  Teutonic  (by  which,  apparently,  can  only  have  been 
meant  the  vernacular  English,  or  what  is  commonly  called  Saxon} 

1  Tonsura  rotunda.  Scriptores  Decern,  1079.  The  epithet  would  seem  to  imply 
*hat  there  were  still  in  Wales  some  priests  of  the  ancient  British  Church  who  re- 
tained the  old  national  crescent-shaped  tonsure,  now  deemed  heretical. 

^  Henry  and  his  son  of  the  same  name  were  commonly  distinguished  as  the  Old 
and  the  Young  King  from  the  date  of  the  coronation  of  the  latter  (wliom  his  iiither 
Burvivedj  in  1170. 


120  ENGLISH   LITER ATL RE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  man  would  not  begin  his  speech  in  one  language,  and  then 
suddenly  break  away  into  another.  But,  if  this  was  the  case, 
Henry,  from  his  reply,  would  appear  to  have  understood  English, 
thoi;gli  he  might  not  be  able  to  speak  it.  The  two  languages,  thus 
subsisting  together,  Avere  probably  both  understood  by  many  of 
those  who  could  only  speak  one  of  them.  We  have  another  evi- 
dence of  this  in  the  fact  of  the  soldier,  as  we  have  seen,  speaking 
English  and  also  understanding  the  King's  French.  It  is,  we  sup- 
pose, merely  so  much  affectation  or  bad  rhetoric  in  the  chronicler 
that  makes  him  vary  his  phrase  for  the  same  thing  fi'om  "  the  Teu- 
tonic tongue"  (^Teutonica  lingua)  in  one  place  to  "English" 
(^Anglice')  in  another,  and  immediately  after  to  "  the  former  lan- 
guage "  (lingua  jJ't'iort)  ;  for  the  words  which  he  gives  as  Teutonic 
are  English  words,  and,  when  Henry  desired  the  soldier  to  address 
the  priest  in  EngHsh  and  the  soldier  did  so,  it  must  have  been 
because  that  was  the  language  in  which  he  had  addressed  the 
king.^ 

"  King  Richard,"  Ritson  proceeds,  "  is  never  known  to  have 
uttered  a  single  English  word,  unless  one  may  rely  on  the  evi 
dence  of  Robert  Mannyng  for  the  express  words,  when,  of  Isaac 
King  of  Cyprus,  '  O  dele,'  said  the  king,  '  this  is  a  fole  Breton. 
The  latter  expression  seems  proverbial,  wdiether  it  alludes  to  the 
Welsh  or  to  the  Armoricans,  because  Isaac  was  neither  by  birth, 
though  he  might  be  both  by  folly.  Many  great  nobles  of  Eng- 
land, in  this  century,  were  utterly  ignorant  of  the  English  lan- 
guage." As  an  instance,  he  mentions  the  case,  before  noticed  by 
Tyrwhitt,  of  William  Longchamp,  bishop  of  Ely,  chancellor  and 
prime  minister  to  Richard  I.,  who,  according  to  a  remarkable 
account  in  a  letter  of  his  contemporary  Hngh  bishop  of  Coventry, 
preserved  by  Hoveden,  did  not  know  a  word  of  English.^  The 
only  fact  relating  to  this  subject  in  connection  with  John  or  his 

1  A  somewhat  difTorent  vitw  of  tliis  story  is  tjiken  by  Mr.  Ludcrs  in  his  tract  On 
the  Use  of  the  French  Language  in  our  ancient  Laws  and  Acts  of  State.  (Tracts 
on  Various  Subjects,  p.  400.)  He  remarks:  "  Tlie  autiior  does  not  tell  why  the 
ghost  spoke  German  to  the  King  in  Wales,  or  how  this  German  became  all  at  once 
good  KngHsh  ;  nor  liow  it  happened  that  the  groom  addressed  the  German  ghost  in 
English."  Mr.  Luders,  therefore,  understands  "the  Teutonic  tongue"  to  mean, 
not  Kni/lish,  but  German. 

"  Lingua  .\nglicanum  prorsus  ignorabat.  —  Hoveden,  704.  Ritson,  omitting  all 
mention  either  of  Hoveden  or  Tj'rwhitt,  chooses  to  make  a  general  reference  to  the 
I'hronicle  called  Hromton's,  a  later  compilation,  the  autiior  of  which  (vide  col.  1227) 
nas  quietl}'  appropriated  Bishop  Hugh's  Letter,  imd  made  it  part  of  liis  narrative. 


THE  LANGUE  D'OC  AND  THE  LANGUE  D'OYL.    121 

reign  that  Ritson  brings  forward,  is  the  speech  which  that  king's 
ambassador,  as  related  by  Matthew  Paris,  made  to  the  King  of 
Morocco  :  —  "  Our  nation  is  learned  in  three  idioms,  that  is  to 
say,  Latin,  French,  and  English."  ^  This  would  go  to  support  the 
conclusion  that  both  the  French  and  the  Latin  languacres  were 
at  this  time  not  unusually  spoken  by  persons  of  education  in 
England. 


THE  LANGUE  D'OC  AND  THE  LANGUE  D'OYL. 

French  as  well  as  Latin  was  at  least  extensively  employed  among 
us  in  hterary  composition.  The  Gauls,  the  original  inhabitants  of 
the  country  now  called  France,  were  a  Celtic  people,  and  their 
speech  was  a  dialect  of  the  same  great  primitive  tongue  which 
probably  at  one  time  prevailed  over  the  whole  of  Western  Europe, 
and  is  still  vernacular  in  Ireland,  in  Wales,  and  among  the  High- 
landers of  Scotland.  After  the  country  became  a  Roman  province, 
this  ancient  language  gradually  gave  place  to  the  Latin  ;  which, 
however,  here  as  elsewhere,  soon  became  corrupted  in  the  mouths 
of  a  population  mixing  it  with  their  own  barbarous  vocables  and 
forms,  or  at  least  divesting  it  of  many  of  its  proper  characteristics 
in  their  rude  appropriation  of  it.  But,  as  different  depraving  or 
obhterating  influences  operated  in  different  circimistances,  and  a 
variety  of  kinds  of  bad  Latin  were  thus  produced  in  the  several 
countries  which  had  been  provinces  of  the  empire,  so  even  within 
the  limits  of  Gaul  there  grew  up  two  such  distinct  dialects,  one  in 
the  south,  another  in  the  north.  All  these  forms  of  bastard  Latin, 
wherever  they  arose,  whether  in  Italy,  in  Spain,  or  in  Gaul,  were 
known  by  the  common  name  of  Roman,  or  Romance,  languages, 
or  the  Rustic  Roman  (Roman a  Rustica),  and  were  by  that  generic 
term  distingxiished  from  the  barbarian  tongues,  or  those  that  had 
been  spoken  by  the  Celtic,  German,  and  other  uncivilized  nations 
before  they  came  into  communication  with  the   Romans.     From 

^  This  was  a  secret  mission  despatched  by  John,  the  historian  tells  us,  in  1213, 
''ad  Admiralium  Murnieliura,  regem  magnum  Aphricae,  Marrochiae,  et  Hispaniae, 
quem  vulgus  Miramumelinum  vocat."  The  words  used  by  Thomas  Herdington, 
the  one  of  the  three  commissioners  selected,  on  account  of  his  superior  gift  of  elo- 
quence, to  be  spokesman,  were  "  Gens  nostra  speciosa  et  ingeniosa  tribus  poUet 
idiomatibus  erudita,  scilicet  Latino,  Gallico,  et  Anglico."  —  Matt.  Paris,  243 
VOL.   I.  16 


122  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND  LANGUAGE. 

them  have  sprung  what  are  called  the  Latin  languages  of  modern 
Europe,  —  the  Italian,  the  Spanish,  and  the  Portuguese,  as  well  as 
what  we  now  denominate  the  French.  The  Romance  spoken  in 
the  south  of  Gaul  appears  to  have  been  originally  nearly,  if  not 
altogether,  identical  with  that  spoken  in  the  northeast  of  Spain ; 
and  it  always  preserved  a  close  resemblance  and  affinity  to  that 
and  the  other  Romance  dialects  of  Spain  and  Italy.  It  is  in  fact 
to  be  accounted  a  nearer  relation  of  the  Spanish  and  Italian  than 
of  the  modern  French.  The  latter  is  exclusively  the  offspring  of 
the  Romance  of  Northern  Gaul,  which,  both  during  its  first  growth 
and  subsequently,  was  acted  upon  by  different  influences  from  those 
wdiich  modified  the  formation  of  the  southern  tongue.  It  is  proba- 
ble that  whatever  it  retained  of  the  Celtic  ingredient  to  beg-in  with 
was,  if  not  stronger  or  of  larger  quantity  than  what  entered  into 
the  Romance  dialect  of  the  south,  at  any  rate  of  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent character ;  but  the  peculiar  form  it  eventually  assumed  may 
be  regarded  as  ha^'ing  been  mainly  owing  to  the  foreign  pressure 
to  which  it  w^as  twice  afterwards  exposed,  first  by  the  settlement 
of  the  Franks  in  the  north  and  northeast  of  Gaul  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury (while  the  Visigoths  and  Burguudians  had  spread  themselves 
over  the  south),  and  again  by  that  of  the  Normans  in  the  north- 
west in  the  tenth.  What  may  have  been  the  precise  nature  or 
amount  of  the  effect  produced  upon  the  Romance  tongue  of  North- 
ern Gaul  by  either  or  both  of  these  Teutonic  occupations  of  the 
country,  it  is  not  necessary  for  our  present  purpose  to  inquire ;  it 
is  sufficient  to  observe  that  that  dialect  could  not  fail  to  be  thereby 
peculiarly  affected,  and  its  natural  divergence  fi'om  the  southern 
Romance  materially  aided  and  promoted.  The  result,  in  fact,  was 
that  the  two  dialects  became  two  distinct  languages,  differing  from 
one  another  more  than  any  two  other  of  the  Latin  languages  did,  — 
the  Italian,  for  example,  from  the  Spanish,  or  the  Spanish  from  the 
Portuguese,  and  even  more  than  the  Romance  of  the  south  of  Gaul 
differed  from  that  either  of  Italy  or  of  Spain.  This  southern  Ro- 
mance, it  only  remains  further  to  be  observed,  came  in  course  of 
time  to  be  called  the  Provencal  tongue  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  to 
have  received  this  name  till,  in  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tur}',  the  county  of  Provence  had  fallen  to  be  inherited  by  Ray- 
mond Berenger,  Count  of  Catalonia,  who  thereupon  transferred  his 
court  to  Aries,  and  made  that  town  the  centre  and  chief  seat  of 
the  literary  cultivation  which  had  previously  flourished  at  Barce- 


THE  LANGUE  D'OC  AND  THE  LANGUE  D'OYL.    123 

lona.  There  had  been  poetry  written  in  the  Romance  of  Southern 
Gaul  before  this  ;  but  it  was  not  till  now  that  the  Troubadours,  as 
the  authors  of  that  poetry  called  themselves,  rose  into  much  celeb- 
rity ;  and  hence  it  has  been  maintained,  with  great  appearance  of 
reason,  that  what  is  best  or  most  characteristic  about  the  Provencal 
poetry  is  really  not  of  French  but  of  Spanish  origin.  In  that  case 
the  first  inspiration  may  probably  have  been  caught  from  the  Arabs. 
The  greater  part  of  Provence  soon  after  passed  into  the  possession 
of  the  Counts  of  Toulouse,  and  the  Troubadours  flocked  to  that 
city.  But  the  glory  of  the  Provencal  tongue  did  not  last  altogether 
for  much  more  than  a  century ;  and  then,  when  it  had  ceased  to 
be  employed  in  poetry  and  literatui'e,  and  had  declined  into  a  mere 
provincial  patois,  it  and  the  northern  French  were  wont  to  be  sev- 
erally distinguished  by  the  names  of  the  Langue  d'Oc  (sometimes 
called  by  modem  writers  the  Occitanian)  and  the  Langue  d'Oyl, 
from  the  words  for  yes,  which  were  oc  in  the  one,  and  oyl,  after- 
wards oy  or  oui,  in  the  other.  Dante  mentions  them  by  these 
appellations,  and  with  this  explanation,  in  his  treatise  De  Vulgari 
Eloquio,  written  in  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  or  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth  century  ;  and  one  of  them  still  gives  its  name  to  the 
great  province  of  Languedoc,  where  the  dialect  formerly  so  called 
yet  subsists  as  the  popular  speech,  though,  of  course,  much  changed 
and  debased  from  what  it  was  in  the  days  of  its  old  renown,  when 
it  lived  on  the  lips  of  i-ank  and  genius  and  beauty,  and  was  the 
favorite  vehicle  of  love  and  song. 

The  Langue  d'Oyl,  on  the  other  hand,  formerly  spoken  only  to 
the  north  of  the  Loire,  has  grown  up  into  what  we  now  call  the 
French  language,  and  has  become,  at  least  for  literary  purposes, 
and  for  all  the  educated  classes,  the  established  language  of  the 
whole  country.  Some  fond  students  of  the  remains  of  the  other 
dialect  have  deplored  this  result  as  a  misfortune  to  France,  which 
they  contend  would  have  had  a  better  modern  language  and  lit- 
erature if  the  Langue  d'Oc,  in  the  contest  between  the  two,  had 
prevailed  over  the  Langue  d'Oyl.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that 
Accident  and  political  circumstances  have  had  more  to  do  m  deter- 
mining the  matter  as  it  has  gone  than  the  merits  of  the  case ;  but 
in  every  country  as  well  as  in  France,  —  in  Spain,  in  Italy,  in  Ger- 
many, in  England,  —  some  other  of  the  old  popular  dialects  than 
the  one  that  ha^  actually  acquired  the  ascendancy  has  in  hke  man- 
ner had  its  enthusiastic  reclaimers  against  the  unjust  fortune  which 


124  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

has  condemned  it  to  degi-adation  or  oblivion  ;  and  we  may  suspect 
tliat  the  partiahty  wliich  the  mind  is  apt  to  acquire  for  whatever  it 
has  made  the  subject  of  long  investigation  and  study,  especially  if 
it  be  something  which  has  been  generally  neglected,  and  perhaps 
in  some  instances  a  morbid  sympathy  with  depression  and  defeat, 
which  certain  historical  and  philosophical  speculators  have  in  com- 
mon with  the  readers  and  writers  of  sentimental  novels,  are  at  the 
bottom  of  much  of  this  unavailing  and  purposeless  lamentation. 
The  question  is  one  which  we  have  hardly  the  means  of  solving, 
even  if  any  solution  of  it  which  might  now  be  attainable  could  have 
any  practical  effect.  The  Langue  d'Oyl  is  now  unalterably  estab- 
lished as  the  French  language ;  the  Langue  d'Oc  is,  except  as  a 
local  patois,  ii'recoverably  dead.  Nor  are  there  wanting  French 
archaeologists,  quite  equal  in  knowledge  of  the  subject  to  their  op- 
ponents, who  maintain  that  in  this  there  is  nothhig  to  regret,  but 
the  contrary,  —  that  the  northern  Romance  tongue  was  as  superior 
to  the  southern  intrinsically  as  it  has  proved  in  fortune,  and  that 
its  early  literature  was  of  far  higher  value  and  promise  than  the 
Proven9al.^ 


NORMAN  TROUVEURS  :  —  DUKE  RICHARD  L  —  THIBAUT  DE 
VERNON.  — TUROLD,  OR  THEROULDE.  — CHANSON  DE  RO- 
LAND. 

It  is,  at  any  rate,  this  early  literature  of  the  Langue  d'Oyl 
which  is  for  us  in  England  of  most  interest.  It  is,  in  fact,  in  a 
manner  a  part  of  our  own.  Not  only  tUd  it  spring  up,  and  for  a 
long  time  flourish  exclusively,  among  those  same  wonderful  Nor- 
juans  whose  greatest  and  most  enduring  dominion  has  been  estab- 
lished in  this  island  ;  the  greater  part  of  it  appears  to  have  been 

1  AVhat  lias  come  to  be  called  the  French  tongue,  it  may  be  proper  to  notice,  has 
no  relationship  whatever  to  that  of  the  proper  French,  or  Franks,  who  were  a  Teu- 
tonic people,  speaking  a  purely  Teutonic  language,  resembling  the  German,  or 
more  nearly  the  Flemish.  Tliis  old  Teutonic  French,  which  the  Franks  continued 
to  ppeak  for  several  centuries  after  their  conquest  of  Gaul,  is  denominated  by  phi- 
lologists the  Fraiilcish,  or  Franclc.  The  modern  French,  which  is  a  Latin  tongue, 
has  come  to  be  so  called,  from  the  accident  of  the  country  in  which  it  was  spoken 
having  been  conquered  by  the  French  or  Franks,  —  the  conquerors,  as  in  other 
cases,  in  course  of  time  adopting  the  language  of  the  conquered,  and  bestowing 
upon  it  their  own  name. 


NORMAN  TROUVEURS  :  —  DUKE   RICHARD  I.  125 

produced  not  in  France,  but  in  Eno;land.  This  was  first  shown 
by  the  late  Abbe  de  la  Rue  in  a  series  of  dissertations  published  in 
1796  and  1797  in  the  twelfth  and  tliirteenth  voliunes  of  the  Ar- 
chseologia,  or  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries,  and  sub- 
sequently, at  more  length  and  with  more  elaborate  research,  in  his 
work  entitled  Essais  Historiq[ues  sur  les  Bardes,  les  Jongleurs,  et 
les  Trouveres  Normands  et  Anglo-Normands ;  3  vols.  8vo.  Caen, 
1834. 

The  earliest  recorded  writer  of  French  verse  appears  to  be 
Richard  I.,  Duke  of  Normandy,  the  natural  but  only  son  of  Wil- 
liam I.,  son  and  successor  of  Rollo,  the  great  founder  of  the  duchy. 
Richard,  who  afterwards  acquired  for  himself  the  svirname  of  Sans- 
peur,  (the  Fearless,)  was  born  in  933,  was  recognized  as  duke  on 
the  death  of  his  father,  ten  years  after,  and  died,  after  a  glorious 
reign  of  more  than  half  a  century,  in  996.  Of  his  poetry,  how- 
ever, nothing  remains  except  the  fame,  preserved  in  the  writings 
of  another  Trouvdre  of  the  next  age.  Richard,  it  may  observed, 
had  been  sent  by  his  father  to  be  educated  at  Bayeux,  where  the 
Danish  language  was  still  spoken,  instead  of  at  Rouen,  the  capital 
of  the  duchy,  where  even  already,  only  a  generation  after  the 
arrival  of  the  Normans,  they  or  their  children,  as  Avell  as  the  na- 
tive population,  spoke  only  French  ;  and  his  taste  for  poetry  is  said 
to  have  been  first-  awakened  by  the  songs  of  the  land  of  his  ances- 
tors. Much  of  the  peculiar  character,  indeed,  of  the  early  north- 
ern French  poetry  betokens  a  Scandinavian  inspiration.  With  this 
influence  was  probably  combined  that  of  the  old  Celtic  poetry  of 
Britany,  or  Armorica,  of  which  the  country  now  called  Normandy 
had  been  originally  a  part,  and  with  which  it  still  continued  to  bo 
intimately  connected.  In  this  way  may  be  reconciled  the  various 
theories  that  have  been  proposed  on  the  subject  of  the  origin  of 
romantic  poetry  and  fiction  in  Europe  ;  one  deducing  it  from  a 
Scandinavian,  another  from  a  Celtic,  a  third  from  an  Oriental 
source  ;  and  each,  separately  looked  at,  appearing  to  support  itself 
by  facts  and  considerations  of  great  force.  When  these  several 
theories  were  advanced  in  op})osition  to  one  another  by  ingenious 
and  more  or  less  well-informed  speculators  of  the  last  century,  the 
iistinction  between  the  early  lang-uage  and  poetiy  of  the  south  and 
hose  of  the  north  of  France  had  been  little  attended  to,  and  was 
very  imperfectly  understood.  Had  the  love-songs  of  the  Proven- 
cal Troubadours,  and  the  lays  and  talcs  of  the  Norman  Trouveres, 


126  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

not  been  confounded  together,  it  might  have  been  perceived  that 
both  the  internal  and  the  external  evidence  concurred  in  assigning, 
in  great  part  at  least,  a  Saracenic  origin  to  the  former,  and  a  mixed 
Scandinavian  and  Armorican  parentage  to  the  latter. 

Another  early  Norman  Trouvere,  whose  name  only  has  been 
preserved,  is  Thibaiit  de  Vernon,  who  was  a  canon  of  Rouen  in 
the  early  part  of  the  eleventh  century,  or  in  the  age  intermediate 
betw^een  that  of  Duke  Richard  Sans-peur  and  that  of  the  Con- 
queror. A  collection  of  fifty-nine  old  French  Lives  of  Saints,  of 
which  three  are  in  verse  and  the  rest  in  prose,  has  been  attributed 
to  De  Vernon  ;  but  erroneously,  as  is  shown  by  M.  de  la  Rue. 
What  he  really  wrote  was  a  verse  Life  of  St.  Vandrille  (the  Abbot 
Wandregisilus) ,  wliich  appears  to  be  lost. 

The  renowned  minstrel  Taillefer,  who  struck  the  first  blow  at 
the  battle  of  Hastings,  is  described  by  his  countryman  Wace,  in 
the  next  century,  as  having  dashed  on  horseback  among  the  ranks 
of  the  Ennlish,  to  meet  his  glorious  death,  sinsino;  of  Charlemao;ne 
and  Roland  and  Oliver,  and  the  other  peers  who  died  at  Ronces- 
vaux  :  — 

De  Karlemaigne  et  de  Reliant, 
E  d'OIiver,  et  des  vassals, 
Qy  morurent  en  Roncesvals. 

Various  pieces  of  ancient  verse  have  been  from  time  to  time  pro- 
duced, claiming  to  be  this  Song  of  Roland  (as  it  is  styled  by  sev- 
eral later  chroniclers)  ;  and  it  has  been  generally  assumed  that 
it  was  a  short  lyrical  strain,  and  a  composition  of  Taillefer's  own. 
Lately,  howeA'er,  much  attention  has  been  attracted  to  a  long 
poem,  of  nearly  three  hundred  stanzas,  or  some  three  thousand 
lines,  which  was  first  pubhshed  by  M.  Francisque  Michel  from  the 
manuscrij)t  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  luider  the  title  of  La  Chanson 
de  Roland,  ou  de  Ronccvaux  (8vo.  Paris,  1837),  and  which  is  main- 
tained to  be  the  true  old  epic  of  which  a  portion  was  recited  by 
Taillefer  on  this  occasion.  The  existence  of  this  poem  was,  we 
believe,  first  pointed  out  in  a  note  to  his  edition  of  Chaucer's  Can- 
terbury Tales  (v.  13,741),  by  Tyrwhitt,  so  many  of  whose  hints 
and  conjectures  on  such  subjects  have  anticipated  or  been  con- 
firmed b}'  more  recent  inquiry,  and  who  observes  that  the  "  ro- 
mance, which  in  the  MS.  has  no  title,  may  possibly  be  an  older 
i;()py  of  one  which  is  frequently  qvioted  by  Du  Cange,  imder  the 


CHANSON   DE   ROLAND.  T^l 

title  of  Le  Roman  de  Ronceveaux."     "  The  author's  name,"  he 
adds,  "  is  Turold,  as  appears  from  the  last  line :  — 

Ci  fait  le  geste  que  Turold'  declinet.^ 

He  is  not  mentioned  by  any  of  the  writers  of  French  literary  his- 
tory that  I  have  seen."  There  are  in  fact  other  manuscripts  of 
the  work,  but  of  a  later  age,  and  exhibiting  a  modernized  text. 
It  appears,  however,  to  have  been  generally  forgotten  until  it  was 
again  mentioned  by  the  late  Rev.  J.  F.  Conybeare,  in  announcing, 
in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  August,  1817,  his  Illustrations  of 
the  Early  History  of  English  and  French  Poetry,  —  a  work  which, 
mifortunately,  he  did  not  live  to  publish.  That  same  year  an  an- 
alysis of  the  poem  was  given  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Memoires 
et  Dissertations  de  la  Society  Royale  des  Antiquaires  de  France, 
by  M.  de  Musset,  who  at  the  same  time  announced  an  edition  of 
it  as  in  preparation  by  M.  Guyot  des  Herbiers.  This,  however, 
never  appeared,  any  more  than  an  edition  which  was  announced  in 
1832  as  then  preparing  by  M.  Bourdillon.  Nor,  although  it  was  sub- 
sequently made  the  subject  of  much  discussion  by  M.  H.  Monin,  who 
published  a  Dissertation  upon  it  in  an  8vo.  volume,  at  Paris,  in 
1832,  by  M,  Paulin  Paris,  by  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  in  his  Analyse 
du  Roman  de  Garin  le  Loherain  (12mo.  Paris,  1835),  and  other 
French  poetical  antiquaries,  was  the  poem  made  accessible  to  the 
public,  till  M.  Michel  was  enabled  to  bring  out  his  edition  of  it  (of 
'which  the  impression,  however,  was  very  limited)  by  the  liber- 
ality of  the  French  government.  But  a  more  sumptuous  edition 
was  subsequently  produced  by  the  late  M.  F.  G^nin,  —  La  Chan- 
son de  Roland,  Texte  Critique  ;  8vo.  Par.  1850,  —  founded  on  a 
ftirther  examination,  conducted  with  extraordinary  care,  of  the 
original  manuscript  (which  the  enthusiastic  editor  is  inclined  to 
believe  to  be  tlie  very  copy  that  had  belonged  to  Taillefer)  —  and 
illustrated  with  everything  in  the  way  of  explanation  and  disqui- 
sition that  any  student  could  desire,  or  that  rare  mgenuity  as  well 
as  erudition  could  supply .^ 

1  Turold'  is  the  common  contraction  for  Turoldus. 

2  See  also  Lettre  sur  les  Variantes  de  la  Chanson  de  Roland,  (e'dition  de  M.  F. 
Ge'nin),  k  M.  Leon  de  Bastard,  par  F.  Gucssard ;  Lettre  a  M.  Paulin  Paris,  par  F, 
Genin  ;  and  Lettre  b,  un  Ami  sur  1' Article  de  M.  Paulin  Paris,  inse're'  dans  la  Bib 
jotheque  de  I'Ecole  des  Chartes,  par  F.  Genin ;  all  published  at  Paris  in  1851. 


128  ENGLISH  LITEKAiuilE   AND  LANGUAGE. 


ANGLO-NORMAN    POETS.  —  KING    HENRY    L  —  HIS     QUEENS 
MATILDA   AND   ALICE. 

To  our  King  Heniy  I.,  surnamed  Beauclerc,  or  the  Scholar, 
who  was  carefully  educated  under  the  superintendence  of  the 
learned  Lanfi-anc,  afterwards  archbishop  and  saint,  M.  de  la  Rue 
attributes  both  an  English  translation  of  a  collection  of  Latin  ^so- 
pian  fkbkis,  mentioned  in  the  next  age  by  Marie  de  Finance,  and 
rendered  by  her  into  French  verse,  and  a  short  poem  m  Romance 
entitled  Urbanus,  or  Le  Dicti^  d'Urbain,  being  a  sort  of  code  of 
the  rules  of  politeness  as  understood  and  observed  in  his  day. 
The  evidence,  however,  is  not  very  conclusive  as  to  either  produc- 
tion ;  and  the  English  fables,  in  particular,  now  only  known  from 
Marie's  translation,  have  been  claimed,  with  perhaps  more  proba- 
bility, for  King  Alfi*ed,  whose  name  appears  mstead  of  that  of 
Henry  in  some  manuscripts  of  Marie's  work.^  Both  Henry's 
queens,  it  may  be  noticed,  are  recorded  to  have  been,  as  well  as 
himself,  fond  of  literature  and  poetry.  M.  de  la  Rue  refers  to 
the  works  of  Hildebert,  bishop  of  le  Mans,  as  containing  several 
pieces  of  Latin  poetry  addressed  to  the  first  of  them,  Matildis,  or 
Matilda,  the  daughter  of  the  Scottish  king  Malcolm  Canmore  and 
the  English  ]\largaret,  herself  a  learned  as  well  as  pious  princess. 
But  the  liveliest  ])icture  of  this  part  of  Queen  JNIatilda's  character 
is  that  drawn  by  William  of  Malmesbury,  who,  it  will  be  perceived 
however,  is  no  great  admirer  of  some  of  the  tastes  which  he  de- 
scribes :  —  "  Slie  had  a  singular  pleasure  in  hearing  the  service 
of  God  ;  and  on  this  account  was  thoughtlessly  prodigal  towards 
clerks  of  melodious  voice  ;  addressed  them  kindly,  gave  to  them 
liberall}',  and  promised  still  more  abundantly.  Her  generosity  be- 
coming universally  known,  crowds  of  scholars,  equally  famed  for 
verse  and  for  singing,  came  over  ;  and  happy  did  he  account  him- 
self who  could  soothe  the  ears  of  the  queen  by  the  novelty  of  his 
song.  Nor  on  those  only  did  she  lavish  money,  but  on  all  sorts  of 
men,  especially  foreigners,  that,  through  her  presents,  they  might 
proclaim  her  liberality  abroad  ;  for  the  desu*e  of  fame  is  so  rooted 
in  tlie   human  mind  that  scarcely  is  any  one  contented  with  the 

1  See  a  note  upon  this  subject  ( which,  however,  appears  not  to  have  convinced 
De  la  Rue)  by  the  late  Mr.  Price,  in  his  edition  of  Warton's  History  of  English 
I'oetry,  i.  Ivii.-lxvi. 


PHILIP   DE   THAN.  129 

precious  fruits  of  a  good  conscience,  but  is  fondly  anxious,  if  he 
does  annhing  laudable,  to  have  it  generally  known.  Hence,  it 
was  generally  observed,  the  disposition  crept  upon  the  queen  to 
reward  all  the  foreigners  she  could,  while  the  others  were"  kept  in 
suspense,  sometimes  with  effectual,  but  often  with  empty  promises. 
Hence,  too,  it  arose  that  she  fell  into  the  error  of  prodigal  givers  ; 
bringing  many  claims  on  her  tenantry,  exposing  them  to  injuries, 
and  taldng  away  their  property  ;  by  which,  obtaining  the  credit  of  a 
liberal  benefactress,  she  little  regarded  their  sarcasms."  ^  With  all 
this  vanity,  however,  and  love  of  admiration  and  applause,  if  such 
it  is  to  be  called,  Matilda  is  admitted  by  the  historian  to  have  con^ 
stantly  practised  the  humblest  and  most  self-denying  offices  of  re- 
ligion :  she  did  not  shrink,  we  are  told,  either  from  washing  the 
feet  of  diseased  persons,  or  even  from  touching  and  dressing  their 
sores  and  pressing  their  hands  for  a  long  time  with  devout  affection 
to -her  lips  ;  and  her  chief  pleasure  was  in  the  worship  of  God.  It 
is  a  trait  of  the  times  to  find  the  same  person  the  chief  patroness 
of  piety  and  of  poetry.  Henry's  second  queen,  also,  Adelais,  or 
Alice,  of  Louvain,  is  addressed  by  several  of  the  Norman  and 
Anglo-Norman  trouveres  as  the  special  protectress  of  them  and 
their  art. 


PmiJP  DE  THAN. —  GEOFFREY,  ABBOT  OF  ST.  ALBANS. 

One  of  those  by  whom  Queen  Adelais  is  thus  distinguished  is 
Philip  de  Than  (anciently  Thaon  or  Thaun),  who,  if  the  age  of 
Turold  and  his  Roman  de  Roncevaux  be  disputed,  may  be  regard- 
ed as  the  earliest  of  the  trouveres  any  of  whose  works  have  cer- 
tainly come  downi  to  us.  He  is  the  author  of  two  French  poems  of 
considerable  length :  one  a  treatise  on  chronological  computation, 
entitled  Li  Livre  des  Creatures  ;  the  other,  known  as  The  Bestiary, 
being  a  sort  of  natural  history,  comprising  an  account  of  both  ani- 
mal and  mineral  productions.  The  latter  is  dedicated  to  the  Eng- 
lish queen,  and  was  probably  written  between  1120  and  1130.:, 
Both  poems  are  mainly  compiled  from  various  Latin  originals.^ 

^  "Willelmi   Malniesbiriensis  Gesta  Regum  Anglorum,   lib.    v.   ad  an.  1107  ;    as  • 
translated  by  the  Rev.  John  Sharpe.     4to.  London,  1815,  p.  516. 
-  Tliey  are  both  given,  with  translations,  in  Mr.  Wright's  Popular  Treatises  on 
VOL.   I.  17 


130  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

We  have  already  mentioned  Geffroy,  or  Geoflfrey,  also  a  native 
of  Nonnandy,  avIio  died  abbot  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Albans  in 
1146,  and  liis  miracle-play  of  St.  Catharine,  which  is  stated  by 
Matthew  Paris  to  have  been  acted  by  the  boys  attending  his  school 
at  Dunstable  about  the  year  1110,  and  is  generally  referred  to  as 
the  earliest  drama  upon  record  in  any  modern  tongue.^  But  in 
truth  we  have  no  information  in  what  language  this  lost  production 
of  Geoffi-ey  was  composed ;  it  may  have  been  in  French,  in  Eng- 
lish, or  in  Jjatin,  though  it  is  most  probable  that  it  was  in  the  first- 
mentioned  tongue.  If  so,  it  is  by  much  the  most  ancient  French 
play  of  which  the  name  has  been  preserved.  Its  claim  to  st^nd  at 
the  head  of  modern  dramatic  literature,  however,  has  been  disputed. 
"  Perhaps,"  observes  a  late  learned  writer,  "  the  plays  of  Roswitha, 
a  nun  of  Gandersheim  in  Lower  Saxony,  who  lived  towards  the 
close  of  the  tenth  century,  afford  the  earliest  specimens  of  dramatic 
composition  since  the  decline  of  the  Roman  empire."  ^  These  plays 
of  Roswitha's  appear  to  have  been  intended  only  for  reading,  and 
are  not  known  ever  to  have  been  acted ;  but  they  have  been  twice 
published,  —  first  by  Conrad  Celtes  in  1501,  and  again  by  Leonard 
Schurtzfleisch  in  1707. 


PILGRIMAGE    OF    SAINT    BRAND  AN.  —  CHARLEMAGNE. 

Another  of  the  poetical  protdgds  or  celebrators  of  Queen  Ad- 
elais  is  the  imknown  author  of  a  poem  of  between  800  and  900 
verses  on  the  Pilgrimage  of  St.  Brandan.  There  were,  it  appears,  in 
the  sixth  century  two  Irish  ecclesiastics  of  the  name  of  Brandan 
or  Brendan,  both  of  whom  liave  since  been  canonized,  the  day  as- 
signed in  the  Calendar  to  the  one  being  the  29th  of  November,  to 
the  other  the  16th  of  May.  It  is  the  latter  with  whom  we  have 
here  to  do.  He  has  the  credit  of  having  been  the  founder  of  the 
abbey  of  Clonfert  in  Galway  ;  but  the  most  memorable  passage  of 
his  history  is  his  voyage,  along  with  some  of  his  monks,  in  quest 
of  a  more  profound  seclusion  from  the  world,  which  was  believed 

Science  written  during  the  Middle  Ages,  in  Anglo-Saxon,  Anglo-Norman,  and  Eng- 
tlish.     8vo.  London,  1841. 

1  See  ante,  p.  70. 

*  Note  by  Price  to  Warton's  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  ii.  68. 


PILGRIMAGE   OF    SAINT   BRANDAN.  131 

in  an  after-age  to  have  conducted  him  to  one  of  the  Fortunate 
Islands,  or  one  of  the  Canaries  according  to  a  still  later  interpreta- 
tion. He  did  not  find  the  scheme  of  so  distant  a  retirement  to  an- 
swer, and  he  soon  returned  to  Ireland ;  but  M.  de  la  Rue  thinks  it 
probable  that  he  drew  up  a  nari-ative  of  his  adventures  for  the  infor- 
mation of  the  European  public  of  that  day,  out  of  which  there 
grew  in  coiu'se  of  time  the  legend  which  bears  the  name  of  his 
Voyage  to  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  and  which  is  as  full  of  marvels 
and  miracles  as  that  of  Ulysses,  or  any  of  those  of  Sinbad  the 
Sailor.  Indeed,  one  of  Sinbad's  principal  wonders,  his  landing  on 
the  whale,  is  actually  found  in  the  Voyage  of  St.  Brandan.  De  la 
Rue  has  given  copious  extracts  from  the  poem  on  this  subject  which 
he  notices,  and  which  professes  to  have  been  composed  at  the  com- 
mand of  Queen  Adelais,  and  immediately  after  her  marriage  in 
1121.  But  the  fullest  account  of  St.  Brandan  and  his  Pilg-rimao-e 
will  be  found  in  the  Preface  to  a  more  recent  publication  by  M. 
Achille  Jubinal,  entitled  La  Legende  Latine  de  S.  Brandaines, 
avec  une  traduction  inedite  en  prose  et  en  poesie  Romane,  publiee 
d'apres  les  manuscrits  de  la  Bibliotheque  du  Roi,  remontant  aux 
xi%  xii%  etxiii'  siecles  ;  8vo.,  Paris,  1836.  Of  the  French  metrical 
legend  here  printed,  which  is  different  from  the  Anglo-Norman 
romance  analyzed  by  De  la  Rue,  M.  Jubinal  states  that  there  are 
many  manuscripts.  It  is  found  as  part  of  a  poem  of  the  thirteenth 
century  written  by  Gauthier  de  JNIetz,  entitled  Image  du  Monde. 
Several  copies  of  the  story  in  Latin  prose  also  exist ;  of  the  French 
prose  version  there  is  only  one  known  text,  Avhich  is  in  the  Biblio- 
theque Impdriale  at  Paris.  It  is  found,  however,  both  in  verse  and 
prose  in  most  of  the  other  European  tongues, — in  Irish,  in  Welsh, 
in  Spanish,  in  German  of  various  dialects,  in  Flemish,  in  English  ; 
and  there  are  printed  editions  of  it,  both  recent  and  in  the  earlier 
ages  of  typography,  in  sevei-al  of  these  languages.  M.  Jubinal 
mentions  an  edition  of  it  in  English  prose,  printed  by  Wynken  de 
Worde,  in  folio,  in  1516  :  it  appears  to  be  a  translation  fi'om  a  Latin 
version  contained  in  a  volume  of  Lives  of  the  Saints,  compiled  under 
the  tith  of  Legenda  Aurea,  by  John  Capgrave,  who  was  an  Eng 
lish  monk  of  the  fourteenth  centuiy,  and  the  author  also  of  a  quan- 
tity of  verse,  some  of  which  still  exists,  in  his  native  tongue.-^  It 
is  remarkable  that  St.  Brandan,  or  Brandain,  has  given  his  name  to 
an  imaginary  island  long  popularly  believed  to  form  one  of  the  Ca- 

1  See  Wanton's  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  ii.  355  ;  and  additional  note  by  Park,  p.  514 
edit,  of  1824). 


132  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

nary  gi'oup,  although  become  iri\'isible  since  liis  day,  or  at  least  not 
to  be  discovered  by  modern  navigators,  to  whom  it  was  a  frequent 
object  of  search  from  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  down  to  so 
late  a  date  as  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century :  the  last 
expedition  in  quest  of  it  was  fitted  out  from  Spain  in  1721.  The 
Spaniards,  who  call  the  lost  island  San  Borendon,  believe  it  to  be 
the  retreat  of  their  King  Rodrigo ;  the  Portuguese  assign  it  to  their 
Don  Sebastian.^  The  acquaintance  of  the  modern  nations  of  Eu- 
rope with  the  Canary  Islands  dates  only  fi*om  about  the  year  1330, 
when  a  French  ship  was  driven  upon  one  of  them  in  a  storm. 

Along  with  this  romance  on  the  pilgrimage  of  St.  Brandan  may 
be  noticed  another  old  French  poem  on  a  fabulous  journey  of 
Charlemagne  to  Constantinople  and  Jerusalem,  which  is  perhaps 
of  still  earlier  date,  and  which  has  also  from  the  language  been 
supposed  to  have  been  written  in  England.  An  account  of  it  is 
given  by  De  la  Rue  (Essais,  ii.  23—32) ;  and  the  poem  has  been 
since  published  by  INI.  Francisque  Michel,  from  the  Royal  j\IS.  16 
E.  viii.,  at  the  British  Museum,  under  the  title  of  Charlemagne,  an 
Anglo-Norman  poem  of  the  Twelfth  Century,  with  an  Introduc- 
tion and  a  Glossarial  Index ;  12rao.  Lon.  1836.  It  consists  of  only 
870  lines. 


ANGLO-NORMAN   CHRONICLERS  :  —  GAIMAR;  —  DAVID. 

But  the  farther  we  pursue  the  history  of  this  early  Nonnan 
poetry,  the  closer  becomes  its  connection  with  oiu'  own  country. 
Not  only  does  it  seek  its  chief  audience  in  England,  but  the  sub- 
jects with  which  it  occupies  itself  come  to  be  princi])ally  or  almost 
exclusively  English.  The  earliest  of  the  old  French  versifiers  of 
our  English  history  appears  to  be  Geffrey  Gaimar,  the  author  of 
a  metrical  chronicle,  entitled  Estorie  des  Engles  (History  of  the 
English).  It  was  probably  completed  about  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century.  Attention  was  first  called  to  Gaimar  and  his 
work  by  the  Abb6  de  la  Rue,  who  appears,  however,  to  have  in 
part  mistaken  the  sense  of  the  account  the  old  chronicler  gives  of 

1  Both  the  Abbi;  de  la  Rue  and  M.  Jubinal  refer  the  reader  for  information  upon 
the  subject  of  the  Isle  of  St.  Brandan  to  the  Noticias  de  la  Historia  de  las  islas  de 
Canaria  of  Doni  Joseph  da  Viera  y  Clavigo  (Madrid,  1672  or  1771). 


GAIMAR.  —  DAVID.  133 

nimself.  In  the  complete  work  the  History  of  the  EngUsh  was 
preceded  by  a  Brut  d'Angleterre,  or  History  of  the  Britons,  which 
he  had  compiled  principally,  he  tells  us,  from  a  Latin  work,  itself  a 
translation  from  a  Welsh  original,  the  good  book  of  Oxford  belong- 
ing to  Walter  the  archdeacon.  Comparing  this  with  what  is  stated 
by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  in  the  Preface  or  Dedication  to  his 
History,  we  cannot  doubt  that  that  was  the  Latin  original  upon 
which  Gaimar  worked.  He  seems  to  say  that  he  also  made  some 
use  of  another  book  which  he  calls  the  History  of  Winchester, 
and  of  an  Enghsh  book  of  Washingburgh  (in  Lincolnshire),  where 
he  found  accounts  of  the  Roman  emperors  who  possessed  the  sover- 
eignty of  England  and  of  the  kings  who  had  held  of  them.  This 
portion  of  Gaimar's  performance,  however,  is  no  longer  known  to 
exist.  His  English  History  extends  from  the  coming  of  the  Angles 
and  Saxons  to  the  death  of  William  Rufus,  and  is  for  the  most 
part  based  on  the  vernacular  National  Chronicle,  but  owes  its 
chief  interest  and  value  to  certain  legendary  matter  gathered 
either  from  other  written  sources,  or,  in  some  cases  perhaps, 
from  mere  popular  tradition.  The  first  portion  of  it  which  was 
printed  was  that  containing  the  story  of  Havelok  the  Dane,  which 
was  given  by  Sir  Frederic  Madden  in  his  edition  of  that  romance 
prepared  for  the  Roxburghe  Club,  London,  1828.  The  latter  por- 
tion of  the  work,  commencing  from  the  Norman  Conquest,  was 
pubhshed  by  M.  Francisque  Michel,  at  Rouen,  in  1835,  in  the  first 
volume  of  his  collection  entitled  Chroniques  Anglo-Normandes. 
The  portion  relating  to  the  period  before  the  Norman  Conquest, 
again,  extending  to  above  5300  fines  in  all,  is  contained  in 
the  Monumenta  Historica  Britannica,  1848.  Finally,  the  whole 
has  been  edited  by  Mr.  Thomas  Wright,  for  the  Caxton  Society, 
under  the  title  of  Gaimar's  Anglo-Norman  Metrical  Chronicle, 
with  Illustrative  Notes  and  Appendix,  containing  the  Lay  of 
Havelok,  the  Legend  of  Ernulf,  and  the  Life  of  Herward ;  8vo. 
London,  1850.  A  translation  of  Gaimar  by  Mr.  Stevenson  is 
given  in  the  Second  Part  of  the  Third  Volume  of  The  Church 
Historians  of  England,  1854. 

At  the  end  of  his  History,  Gaimar,  who  here  describes  himself 
^s  of  Troyes,  intimates  his  intention  of  writing  a  separate  Life  of 
King  Henry  I.,  of  whom  he  says  that  he  could  tell  a  thousand 
things  omitted  by  David,  who  did  not  go  sufficiently  into  details  to 
io  justice  to  the  nobleness,  the  liberality,  the  magnificence,  and 


184  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  other  brilhant  quahties  of  that  great  kmg,  although  his  cliron 
icle  was  highly  esteemed,  and  in  particular  was  a  favorite  book 
with  the  Queen  Adelais.  Of  this  David,  who  is  nowhere  else 
made  mention  of,  nothing  is  known.  His  performance  was  m 
verse ;  Gaimar  calls  it  a  Chanson.  Nor  have  we  any  evidence 
that  Gaimar's  own  promised  Life  of  King  Henry  was  ever  written. 


WAGE. 


The  most  famous  of  these  writers  of  early  English  history  in 
romance  verse  is  Master  Wace,  —  Maitre  Wace,  elerc  lisant  (that 
is,  writing  clerk),  as  he  calls  himself,  —  in  Latin  Magister  Wacius. 
The  name  is  also  otherwise  written  in  his  own  day  Waice,  Grace, 
Grasse,  and  Gasce  ;  but  Guace,  Suace,  Huistace,  Wistace,  Extasse, 
Eustace,  Eustache,  are  the  corruptions  of  a  subsequent  age  or 
modern  variations,  and  Wate,  wdiich  is  the  form  adopted  by  some 
modern  writers,  is  a  mere  mistranscription.-^  His  Christian  name 
appears  to  have  been  Richard.  He  was  a  native  of  the  island  of 
Jersey,  where  he  was  probably  born  in  the  last  decade  of  the 
eleventh  century,  and  of  a  good  family :  his  father  was  one  of  the 
Norman  barons  who  accompanied  the  Conqueror  to  England  and 
fought  at  PLastings ;  he  himself  was  educated  for  the  ecclesiastical 
profession  at  Caen,  and,  after  passing  some  years  in  other  parts 
of  France,  and  also,  it  appears,  visiting  England,  he  returned  and 
settled  in  that  city,  where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  writing 
his  several  poetical  works.  In  his  latter  years  he  was  made  by 
Henry  II.  a  canon  of  Bayeux.  The  Waces,  probably  descendants 
of  the  poet's  father,  obtained  large  possessions  in  Nottinghamshire 
and  Yorkshire  ;  and  another  branch  continued  to  flourish  for  some 
ages  in  Normandy.  The  first  of  Wace's  chronicles  is  entitled  the 
Brut  d'Angleterre,^  and  is  in  the  main  a  translation  into  romance 

1  Ware,  however,  according?  to  Mr.  Wriglit,  is  really  "  merely  the  vernacular 
form  of  the  Latin  Eiislmius."  —  (Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  206.) 

'•^  The  Britisli  Chronicles  are  generally  supposed  to  have  been  called  Bruts  from 
Brutus,  the  great-grandson  of  ^T'^neas,  who  is  represented  in  them  as  the  first  king 
of  the  Britons;  hut  the  author  of  Britannia  after  the  Romans  puts  forward  a  new 
interi)retation.  '•  Brud,"  he  says  (p.  xxii.),  "in  construction  Brut,  is  reputation, 
or  rumor,  and  in   the   set(jndary  sense,  a  chronicle,  or  history.     It  reta  us  that 


WAGE.  135 

verse  of  eight  syllables  of  the  British  History  of  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth, although  it  contains  also  a  good  many  things  which  are  not 
in  Geoffrey.  It  extends  to  upwards  of  15,000  lines.  After  fin- 
ishing his  work  Wace  is  said  to  have  presented  it  to  Henry  II. 's 
queen,  Eleanor  of  Aquitaine.  Many  manuscripts  of  it  exist  both 
in  England  and  in  France  ;  and  it  has  now  been  printed,  under 
the  title  of  Le  Roman  de  Brut,  par  Wace ;  avec  un  Commentaire 
et  des  Notes,  par  Le  Roux  de  Lincy ;  2  vols.  8vo.  Rouen,  1836, 
1838.  Wace's  other  great  work  is  his  Roman  de  Rou,  that  is, 
Romance  of  Rollo.  It  is  a  chronicle  of  the  Dukes  of  Normandy, 
in  two  parts :  the  first,  in  Alexandrine  verses,  extending  only  to 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  the  third  duke,  Richard  Sans-peur ; 
the  second,  in  eight-syllable  rhymes,  coming  down  to  the  year 
1170,  the  sixteenth  of  Henry  II.  There  are  nearly  17,000  lines 
in  all.  The  composition  of  the  first  part  is  stated  to  have  been 
commenced  in  1160,  and  it  appears  to  have  been  published  by 
itself ;  but  some  years  after,  on  learning  that  the  charge  of  writing 
the  history  of  the  Dukes  of  Normandy  in  verse  had  been  confided 
by  King  Henry  to  another  poet  named  Benoit,  Wace,  as  M.  de  la 
Rue  supposes,  resumed  his  pen,  and,  adopting  for  expedition  the 
easier  octosyllabic  verse,  hastened  to  complete  his  task  before  his 
rival. ^  The  entire  work  was  printed  for  the  first  time  in  1827  at 
Rouen,  in  2  vols.  8vo.,  under  the  title  of  Le  Roman  de  Rou  et  des 
Dues  de  Normandie,  par  Robert  Wace  ;  avec  des  Notes  par  Fred- 
eric Pluquet ;  but,  although  M.  Pluquet,  who  had  in  1824  pub- 
lished a  short  notice  about  Wace  (Notice  sur  la  Vie  et  les  Ecrits 
de  Robert  Wace),  mostly  copied  from  the  Abbd  de  la  Rue's  paper 
in  the  Archaaologia,  was  assisted  in  the  preparation  of  his  edition 
by  M.  Augviste  le  Pre  vest,  whose  notes  are  often  learned  and 
curious,  it  is  evident  that  very  little  knowledge  or  critical  judg- 
ment has  been  employed  in  settling  the  text,  which  is  often  mani- 
festly corrupt  either  from  mistranscription  or  reliance  on  a  faulty 
original.  Some  of  its  errors  have  been  pointed  out,  with  sufficient 
gentleness,  by  M.  Raynouard  in  a  small  tract  entitled  Observations 
Philosophiques    et   Grammaticales   sur   le    Roman    de    Rou,   8vo. 

original  sense  in  the  French  and  English  word  bruit ;  and,  though  it  is  curious  that 
ill  the  Welsh  Chronicles  begin  with  the  reign  of  Brutus,  we  must  not  be  seduced 
by  that  accident  into  etymological  trifling." 

1  M.  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  however,  denies  that  this  latter  part  of  the  Roman  des 
Dues  de  Normandie  is  by  Wace,  or  that  he  ever  really  attempted  in  his  old  age  to 
>ompete  with  Benoit. 


136  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Rouen,  1829 ;  which  ought  always  to  accompany  M.  Pluquet's 
edition.  Mr.  Edgar  Taylor  (author  of  the  volume  entitled  Lays 
of  the  Minnesingers  or  German  Troubadours,  and  other  works) 
lias  translated  so  much  of  the  Roman  de  Rou  as  relates  to  the 
Conquest  of  England  into  English  prose,  with  notes  and  illustra- 
tions, 8vo.  Loud.  1837.  The  mterest  that  has  been  lately  excited 
by  this  old  Norman  poet  is  further  evinced  by  the  publication  of 
two  others  of  his  supposed  works  ;  his  Shorter  Chronicle  of  the 
Dukes  of  Noraiandy,  in  Alexandrine  verse,  from  Henry  IL  back 
to  Rollo,  which  is  printed  in  the  first  volume  (Part  ii.  pp.  444—447) 
of  the  jNIemoires  de  la  Soci^te  des  Antiquaires  de  Normandie,  8vo. 
1824 ;  ^  and  his  poem,  in  verse  of  eight  syllables,  on  the  establish- 
ment by  William  the  Conqueror  of  the  Festival  of  the  Conception 
of  the  Virgin,  which  was  printed  in  8yo.  at  Caen,  in  1842,  under 
the  title  of  L'Etablissement  de  la  Fete  de  la  Conception  Notre 
Dame,  dite  la  Fete  aux  Normands  ;  public  pour  la  premiere  fois 
d'aprds  les  MSS.  de  la  Bibliotheque  du  Roi,  par  MM.  Mancel  et 
Trebutien.  A  very  limited  impression,  also,  of  another  of  his 
romances,  entitled  La  Vie  de  St.  Nicholas,  in  about  1500  lines,  of 
which  there  are  several  manviscripts  in  existence,  and  some  extracts 
fi'om  which  are  given  by  Hickes  in  his  Thesaurus  Linguarum  Sep- 
tentrionalium,  is  stated  by  M.  le  Roux  de  Lincy  to  have  been  pro- 
duced by  i\L  Monmerque  for  the  Societe  des  Bibliophiles  Fran- 
^ais,  and  to  be  contained  in  the  seventh  volume  of  their  privately 
printed  M(^langes,  8vo.  Paris,  1820-1834.  Wace  is  besides  com- 
monly held  to  be  the  author  of  a  Romance  about  the  Virgin, 
extending  to  1800  verses,  and  comprising  a  full  account  of  her 
life  and  death,  which  is  still  in  manuscript. 


BENOlT. 


Wage's  contemporary  and  rival,  Benoit,  also  wrote  a  Chronicle 
r)f  tlie  Norman  Dukes,  though  not  till  some  years  after  Wace  had 
Vinish('(l  his.     Benoit's  performance  consists  of  above  30,000  octo- 

1  Hotli  M.  Le  Roux  de  Liiicy,  however,  and  M.  Francisque  Michel,  a  much  higher 
authority  (in  the  Preface  to  his  Ciironique  des  Dues  de  Normandie  par  Benoit, 
1836,  p.  XV.),  agree  in  liolding  this  to  be  the  production  of  a  later  writer  thai 
Wace. 


EVERARD.  -  FRENCH  LANGUAGE  IN  SCOTLAND.   137 

syllabic  verses,  and  begins  at  the  first  irruption  of  the  Noi-mans 
under  their  leaders  Hastings  and  Bier  Ironside,  but  comes  down 
no  farther  than  to  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  I.  It  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  preserved  only  in  one  MS.  which  is  in  the  Har- 
leian  collection  in  the  British  Museum,  and  from  which  it  has  been 
printed  at  Paris,  under  the  care  of  M.  Francisque  Michel,  with 
the  title  of  Chronique  des  Dues  de  Normandie,  par  BenoTt,  Trou- 
vere  Anglo-Normand  du  12'"'  siecle,  3  vols.  4to.  1836-44.^  But 
another  MS.  has  since  been  found  in  the  Library  of  the  city  of 
Tours.  It  is,  from  its  fulness  and  minuteness,  one  of  the  most 
cimous  monuments  we  possess  of  early  Norman  history,  and  con- 
tains many  details  nowhere  else  to  be  found.  This  Benoit  also 
appears  to  be  the  same  with  the  Benoit  de  St.  More,  or  St.  Maure, 
by  whom  we  have  another  long  romance  of  nearly  30,000  verses, 
entitled  the  Roman  de  Troye,  being  a  legendary  history  of  the 
Trojan  war,  founded  on  the  favorite  authorities  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  fictitious  Daises  Phrygius  and  Dictys  of  Crete  :  their  identity 
had  been  doubted  by  M.  Michel  in  his  edition  of  the  Norman 
Chronicle  ;  but  he  was  subsequently  induced,  Mr.  Wright  informs 
us  (Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  262)  to  change  his  opinion. 


EVERARD.  — FRENCH   LANGUAGE  IN    SCOTLAND. 

Among  these  early  romance  poets,  the  Abbe  de  la  Rue  reckons 
a  Scotsman,  one  Everard,  who,  after  having  been  a  monk  of  Kirk- 
ham  in  Yorkshire,  was  in  1150  appointed  by  David  I.  of  Scotland 
—  that  "  sore  saint  to  the  crown,"  as  he  was  called  by  his  succes- 
sor, the  first  James  —  the  first  abbot  of  his  newly-founded  abbey 
of  Ulme  or  Holme-Cultraine  in  Cumberland.  To  him  M.  de  la 
Rue  attributes  a  French  metrical  translation  of  what  are  called  the 
Distichs  of  Cato,  which  is  said  to  afford  the  earliest  known  ex- 
ample in  the  language  of  mixed  rhymes,  that  is,  of  the  alternation 
of  masculine  and  feminine  rhymes,  now  an  established  rule  of 
French  poetry.  A  romance  history  of  the  Passion  of  Christ,  in 
126  strophes,  and  in  the  same  style  with  the  Distichs,  which  is 
found  along  with  the  Latin  work  in  one  of  the  Arundel  MSS.,  for- 

^  In  the  Collection  de  Documents  Inedits  sur  I'Hlstoire  de  France. 
VOL.  I.  18 


138  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

merly  belonging  to  the  Royal  Society,  now  in  the  British  Museum, 
the  Abbe  conceives  to  be  also  in  all  probability  by  Everard.  But 
the  evidence  for  identifying  the  translator  of  the  Distichs  v^^ith  the 
monk  of  Kirkham  a|)pears,  it  must  be  confessed,  to  be  extremely 
slight.^  A  knowledge  of  the  French  language,  nevertheless,  seems 
to  have  been  as  general  at  this  date  in  Scotland  as  in  England. 
Pinkerton,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  Scottish  Poetry,  prefixed 
to  his  Ancient  Scotish  Poems,  2  vols.  8vo.  Lond.  1786,  after  ob- 
serving that  the  chief  English  poets  wrote  solely  in  French  for 
three  centuries  after  the  Conquest,  —  that  French  was  the  only  lan- 
guage used  at  court  or  by  the  nobility,  nay  even  by  the  middle 
ranks  of  people,  —  that  Saxon  was  left  merely  to  the  mob,  —  that 
the  apophthegms,  expressions,  &c.,  preserved  by  historians  of  the 
time,  are  all  in  old  French,  —  and  that  probably  upwards  of  a  hun- 
dred names  of  English  writers  who  wrote  in  French  during  that 
interval  might  yet  be  recovered,  —  proceeds  to  mention  some  facts 
Avhicli  illustrate  the  prevalence  of  the  same  language  in  the  north- 
ern kingdom.  "Upon  the  murder  of  Duncan  by  Macbeth,"  he 
remarks,  "in  1039,  Malcolm,  the  heir  of  the  crown,  fled  into  Eng- 
land, where  he  remained  for  seventeen  years  before  he  was  enabled 
to  resume  his  kingdom.  Edward  the  Confessor  was  king  of  Eno;- 
land  from  1041  till  1065,  and  in  his  reign  we  know  that  French 
was  the  court-language  in  England.  Malcolm  surely  used  this 
speech,  and  his  court  also.  Many  Saxons  came  to  Scotland  with 
him  in  1056,  and  also  at  the  Conquest  (1066) ;  but  in  1093  they 
were  all  very  prudently  ordered  to  leave  the  kingdom  by  Dovenald 
Ban,  his  successor.  They  were  chiefly  men  of  rank  ;  and,  had 
they  introduced  any  language,  it  would  have  been  the  French. 
....  But  yet  another  point  requires  our  attention.  In  945,  Ed- 
mund king  of  England  gave  Cumberland  to  Malcolm  I.,  king  of 
Scotland,  on  condition  of  homage  for  it.  From  this  period  the 
heir  of  the  Scotish  crown  was  always  Prince  of  Cumberland,  and 

resided  as  a  king  in  that  country Now  the  prince,  it  may 

be  supposed,  dil  not  use  the  Gaelic  in  a  country  where  it  was 
never  spoken  ;  but,  remaining  there  from  early  youth,  adopted 
French,  the  court-tongue  of  England,  in  which  country  his  princi- 
[lality  was,  and  to  the  king  of  which  he  was  bound  to  do  homage."  ^ 
He  then  mentions  that  under  William  of  Scotland,  in  1165,  the 
coin  of  that  comitry  bears  a  French  inscription  ;  and  that  Alexan- 
1  See  Wright's  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  124.  2  Essay,  p.  Ixiv. 


LUC  DE  LA   BARRK.  — GUICHARD   DE   BEAULIEU.      139 

der  III.,  in  1249,  is  stated  to  have  taken  the  coronation  oath 
Latins  et  Gallice,  in  Latin  and  in  French:  it  was  read  in  Latin 
(probably  after  the  ancient  formnla),  and  then  expounded  in 
Fi'ench.^  And  he  concludes :  —  "  French  being  the  language  of 
the  polite,  and  Latin  of  the  learned,  who  could  use  the  vulgar 
tongue  in  writing  ?  ....  I  suspect  that  no  Scotish  poet,  before 
Thomas  of  Ersildon,  ventured  beyond  a  ballad  when  using  his  na- 
tive tongue.     Perhaps  one  or  two  may  have  written  a  romance  in 

French  rhyme,   though   now  lost  or  unknown The  poor 

bards  who  entertained  the  mob  mio;ht  recite  ballads  and  short 
romances  in  the  vulgar  tongue  ;  but  the  minstrels  who  appeared  in 
the  king's  or  in  the  baron's  hall  would  use  French  only,  as  in  Eng- 
land ;  for  had  they  tried  the  common  language  they  would  have 
been  sent  into  the  kitchen."^  By  the  common  language,  Pinker- 
ton  means  the  Pictish,  which  he  conceives  to  have  been  a  Gothic 
dialect  nearly  allied  to  the  English.  In  this  notion  he  is  probably 
wrong  :  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  Picts  spoke  a 
Celtic  dialect ;  but  it  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  the  popular  speech 
of  the  south-eastern  half  of  Scotland  at  this  period  was,  as  he  as- 
sumes, a  Gothic  dialect,  though  derived  not  fi'om  the  Picts,  but 
from  the  Anglian  and  Danish  settlers,  who  had  occupied  the  whole 
of  that  region  partially,  and  a  great  part  of  it  exclusively,  ever 
since  the  seventh  centiuy. 


LUC  DE  LA  BARRE.  —  GUICHARD  DE  BEAULIEU. 

Another  early  trouvere  whose  liistory  connects  him  with  Eng- 
land is  Luc  de  la  Barre,  famous  for  the  satirical  rhymes  which  he 
composed  against  Henry  I.,  and  for  the  terrible  punishment  (the 
extinction  of  his  sight)  which  he  drew  down  upon  himself  from  the 
exasperated  king.  It  appears,  however,  that  it  was  not  till  aftei 
repeated  and  extreme  provocation,  and  the  abuse  of  much  clemency, 
that  Henry  took  this  savage  revenge.  De  la  Barre,  who  was  a 
disting-uished  Norman  baron  and  warrior  as  well  as  a  poet,  had 
espoused  the  cause  of  Duke  Robert  in  the  quarrel  between  the 
two  brothers  ;  but,  although,  in  the  course  of  the  contest  of  arms 
for  the  possession  of  the  duchy,  he  had  been  several  times  taken 
1  Hailes,  Annals,  i.  195.  ^  Essay,  p.  Ixvi. 


140  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

prisoner,  he  had  always  been  dismissed  without  ransom  by  the 
Enghsh  king,  perhaps  out  of  respect  to  his  poetical  talents  or  repu- 
tation, till  he  at  last,  in  a  fatal  hour  for  himself,  turned  against  his 
benefactor  with  his  pen  as  well  as  with  his  sword.  Henry  was 
perhaps  stung  more  by  the  ingratitude  of  the  poet  than  by  the 
sharpness  of  his  sarcasms ;  or,  at  any  rate,  as  De  la  Rue  insinuates, 
if  it  was  an  acute  feeling  of  the  wdt  and  the  poetry  which  actuated 
him,  there  was  still  somethino-  o-enerous  and  hio-hminded  even  in 
an  excess  of  such  sensibility.  There  is  nothing,  however,  of  De 
la  Barre's  remaining. 

Guichard  (or  Guiscard)  de  Beaulieu  describes  himself  as  a 
monk,  and  is  supposed  by  M.  de  la  Rue  to  have  belonged  to  the 
priory  of  that  name,  which  was  a  dependency  of  the  abbey  of 
St.  Albans.  Mr.  Wright,  however,  doubts  this,  and  thinks  that 
Beauheii  was  probably  his  family  name.^  His  only  known  work 
is  a  sort  of  sermon,  in  French  verse,  on  the  vices  of  the  age,  con- 
sisting of  nearly  2000  Alexandrine  lines.  It  has  been  edited  by 
M.  Achille  Jubinal,  8vo.  Paris,  1834.  It  appears  to  have  been 
intended  for  a  popular  audience.  The  poetical  preacher  begins  by 
telling  his  hearers  that  he  is  not  going  to  speak  to  them  in  Latin, 
but  in  Romance,  in  order  that  all  may  understand  him.  "  The 
mention  of  sennons  in  verse,"  observes  De  la  Rue,  "  may  perhaps 
surprise  the  reader ;  but  it  is  certain  that  at  this  epoch,  at  least 
among  the  Normans  and  the  Anglo-Normans,  it  Avas  customary  to 
read  to  the  people  the  lives  of  the  Saints  in  French  verse,  on  Sun- 
days and  holidays."  ^  Guichard's  poetry  is  described  as  often  naive 
and  graceflil  in  expression,  and  sweet  in  its  flow ;  and  he  is  the 
first  writer  who  is  known  to  have  introduced  into  the  romance 
poetry  the  practice  of  preserving  the  same  rhyme  throughout  each 
stanza  or  paragraj)h,  extending  sometimes  to  thirty,  sixty,  or  even 
eighty  lines  or  more^  —  a  fashion  followed  by  many  succeeding 
writers  in  ten  and  twelve  syllabled  verse,  and  which  De  la  Rue 
conceives  Guichard  must  have  borrowed  from  the  Welsh,  or  their 
kindred  the  Armoricans. 

1  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  132.  2  Essais,  ii.  138. 

'  The  commencing  .stanza  of  Parise  la  Duchcsse  (consiilered  as  one  of  the  parts 
of  the  Roman  dcs  Douze  I'aires  de  France),  whicli  has  been  published  under  the 
care  of  M.  G.  F.  de  Martonne,  12mo.  Paris,  1836,  consists  of  119  lines,  all  ending 
rith  the  same  rhyme. 


ARTHURIAN   ROMANCE:  — THE   SAINT   GREAL.-LUC   DU 
GAST.  —  BURON.  —  M  APES. 

We  cannot  here  attempt  to  take  up  the  intricate  and  obscure 
question  of  the  origin  of  the  Arthurian  body  of  Romance,  includ- 
ing the  romances  of  the  Round  Table  and  those  of  the  quest  of 
the  Saint  Greal,  about  Avhich  so  much  has  been  written,  in  great 
part  to  little  purpose  except  to  be  refuted  by  the  next  inquirer. 
In  addition  to  the  earlier  speculations  of  Warburton,  Tyrwhitt, 
Warton,  Percy,  and  Ritson,  and  to  what  has  been  more  recently 
advanced  by  Ellis,  Southey,  Scott,  Dunlop,  and  other  writers 
amono;  ourselves,  the  Preface  of  the  late  Mr.  Price  to  liis  edition 
of  Warton's  Histoiy  of  English  Poetry  (pp.  68,  &c.),  and  the  In- 
troduction to  Britannia  after  the  Romans  (pp.  vi.  &c.),  may  be 
pointed  out  to  the  reader's  attention.  The  theory  of  the  author 
of  the  last-mentioned  treatise  is  in  some  respects  new  and  curious. 
"  The  great  Work,"  he  observes,  "  and,  as  I  may  say,  the  Alcoran, 
of  Arthurian  romance  was  the  Book  of  the  Saint  Greal.  In  truth, 
it  is  no  romance,  but  a  blasphemous  imposture,  more  extravagant 
and  daring  than  any  other  on  record,  in  which  it  is  endeavored  to 
pass  oif  the  mysteries  of  bardism  for  direct  inspirations  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."  The  original  work,  this  writer  holds,  was  actually 
composed  in  Welsh,  as  it  professes  to  have  been,  in  the  year  717. 
"Greal,"  he  savs,  "is  a  Welsh  Avord,  signifying  an  aggregate  of 
principles,  a  magazine  ;  and  the  elementary  world,  or  world  of 
spirits,  was  called  the  Country  of  tJie  Greal.  From  thence  the 
Avord  Greal,  and  in  Latin  Gradalis,  came  to  signify  a  vessel  in 
which  various  messes  might  be  mixed  up."  The  Saint  Greal, 
according  to  the  common  account  in  the  British  romances,  which 
appears  to  be  derived  from  the  apocryphal  gospel  of  Nicodemus,  is 
the  plate  from  which  Christ  ate  his  last  supper,  and  which  is  said 
to  have  been  appropriated  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  to  have 
been  afterwards  used  by  him  to  collect  the  blood  that  flowed  from 
the  wounds  of  the  Redeemer.  It  makes  a  great  figure  in  the 
romantic  history  of  Arthur  and  his  Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  as 
may  be  seen  in  the  eleventh  and  subsequent  books  of  the  popular 
compilation  entitled  Morte  Darthus.  The  author  of  Britannia  after 
the  Romans  maintains  that  the  original  Welsh  Book  of  the  Saint 
Greal  was  imquestionably  the  work  of  the  bard  Tysilio.     ])e  la 


142  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

Rue  holds  that  the  original  romances  on  the  quest  of  the  Saint 
Greal,  or  Saint  Graal,  are  to  be  considered  as  formino;  quite  a  dis- 
tinct body  of  fiction  from  those  relating  to  the  Round  Table,  and 
that  much  misapprehension  has  arisen  from  confounding  the  two. 
The  account  given  by  him  is  in  substance  as  follows :  —  The  oldest 
verse  romance  on  the  subject  of  the  Saint  Greal  appears  to  have 
been  composed  by  Chretien  de  Troyes  about  the  year  1170  ;  but 
of  his  work  only  some  fragments  remain,  and  the  earliest  entire 
romance  now  existing  wdiich  treats  of  this  subject  is  the  prose 
Roman  de  Tristan,  written  by  Luc  du  Gast,  wdio  was  a  person  of 
family  and  property ;  he  calls  himself  Chevalier  and  Sire  du  Chas- 
tel  du  Gast  —  that  is,  according  to  M.  de  la  Rue,  Gast  in  Nor- 
mandy, now  situated  in  the  canton  of  St.  Sever,  and  the  depart- 
ment of  Calvados.  Although  of  Norman  descent,  however,  he 
was  a  native  and  inhabitant  of  England  :  he  resided,  he  tells  us, 
near  Sahsbury  ;  and,  if  his  French  should  not  always  be  correct, 
he  begs  his  readers  to  excuse  him  on  the  score  of  his  English  birth 
and  breeding.  It  was  from  this  prose  romance,  the  Abb^  proceeds 
to  state,  and  from  a  continuation  of  it  by  Walter  Map,  or  Mapes, 
already  mentioned,  whose  work  is  entitled  Roman  des  Diverses 
Quetes  du  Saint  Graal,  and  is  dedicated  to  Henry  XL,  that  Chre- 
tien de  Troyes  soon  after  drew  the  materials  of  his  verse  romance, 
which  is  called  the  Roman  du  Saint  Graal,  or  sometimes  the  Roman 
de  Perceval.  But  both  Luc  du  Gast  and  Walter  Map,  and  also 
Robert  de  Borron,  who  likewise  wrote  in  this  age  a  prose  Roman 
du  Saint  Graal  (which,  however,  is  merely  a  life  of  Joseph  of 
Arimathea),  all  declare  that  they  translated  ifrom  a  Latin  original, 
which  they  say  had  been  drawn  up  by  order  of  King  Arthur  himself, 
and  deposited  by  him  in  the  library  of  the  cathedral  of  Salisbury. 
Another  romance  on  the  subject  of  the  Saint  Greal,  which  is  noAV 
lost,  is  attributed  to  a  writer  named  Gace  le  Blount,  wdio  is  said  to 
liave  been  a  relation  of  Henry  H.  Map,  in  addition  to  his  Roman 
des  Diverses  Quetes,  wdiich  is  in  two  parts,  continued  the  history  of 
the  knights  who  had  engaged  in  the  search  for  the  Saint  Greal  in 
a  third  romance,  also  in  prose,  which  he  entitled  La  Mort  d'Artur; 
and  he  is  also  the  author  of  another  prose  romance  on  the  adven- 
tures of  Lancelot  du  Lac.  Upon  one  of  the  incidents  in  this  last, 
Chr(3tien  de  Troyes  founded  his  verse  romance,  also  still  extant, 
entitled  Laicelot  de  la  Charette.  From  another  prose  romance  by 
Robert  de   Borron,  on   the  subject  of  the   enchanter  Merlui,   an 


LUC   DU   GAST.  — BURON.  — MAPES.  143 

Anglo-Norman  trouvere  of  the  latter  part  of  the  thu'teenth  cen- 
tury composed  a  verse  romance,  which  is  still  preserved,  entitled 
Merlyn  Ambroise.  Finally,  in  association  with  his  relation  Elie 
de  Borron,  and  with  another  writer  called  Rusticien  de  Pise, 
Robert  de  Borron  produced  a  prose  translation  of  the  Historia 
Rritonvim  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  and  also  the  two  romances 
of  Meliadus  de  Leonois  and  Giron  le  Courtois ;  and  Elie  de  Bor- 
ron wrote  by  himself  the  Roman  de  Palamedes.^ 

Thus  far  the  Abbe  de  la  Rue.  Since  his  work  appeared,  how- 
ever, some  parts  of  his  statement  have  been  corrected  or  contro- 
verted by  M.  Michel  and  other  recent  writers.  In  the  elaborate 
Introduction  to  his  edition  of  Tristan,  to  be  presently  mentioned 
(Paris,  1835),  M.  Michel,  accepting  his  own  account  of  himself, 
maintains  Luc,  or  Luces,  to  whom  he  attributes  either  the  inven- 
tion, or  at  least  the  first  translation  from  the  Latin,  of  that  ro- 
mance, to  have  been  an  Englishman,  and  lord  of  a  chateau  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Salisbury,  the  name  of  which  is  variously  given  in 
the  manuscripts  as  Grat,  Grast,  Cfad,  Grant,  and  Grail.  Henry  IL,  M. 
Michel  further  states,  delighted  with  this  prose  work  of  Luce, 
engaged  Walter  Map  to  follow  it  up  in  the  same  style  with  the 
Romance  of  Lancelot ;  and  Robert  de  Buron,  Borron,  or  Bowron, 
to  add  that  of  the  Saint  Greal :  finally,  Heyle  de  Buron,  a  brother, 
or  at  least  a  relation,  of  Robert,  revised  the  whole,  and  gave  a 
unity  and  completeness  to  the  cycle  by  finishing  the  story  of  Tris- 
tram. 

In  the  Notice  prefixed  to  his  publication,  from  the  MS.  in  the 
Bibhotheque  du  Roi,  now  the  Bibliotheque  Imperiale,  of  the 
Roman  du  Saint  Graal,  in  old  French  verse  (12mo.  Bordeaux, 
1841),  M.  Michel  states  that  Map,  by  order  of  Henry  II. ,  ch-ew 
up  the  Romance  of  the  Saint  Graal  in  Latin  from  the  songs  and 
lays  of  the  bards  of  Britany ;  and  that  his  work  was  afterwards 
translated  into  French  by  Robert  de  Borron.  The  Roman  de 
Perceval  of  Chrestien  de  Troyes  is  not,  he  says,  a  romance  of  the 
Saint  Graal  at  all ;  it  only  contains  the  last  adventures  of  the  Saint 
Graal.  The  poem  which  he  publishes,  and  which  is  incomplete, 
extends  to  4018  octosyllabic  lines.^ 

1  De  la  Rue,  Essais  Historiques,  ii.  206-248. 

■■^  "  Walter  Mapes,"  says  Mr.  Wright,  "  was  distinguished  as  a  writer  in  the 
Anglo-Norman  language,  as  well  as  in  Latin.  It  is  to  him  we  owe  a  large  portion 
vf  the  cycle  of  the  romances  of  the  Round  Table  in  the  earliest  form  in  which  tlioy 


144  ENGLISH   LITERATUKli:   AND    LANGUAGE. 


ROMAN  DU   ROI   HORN. 

It  will  be  most  convenient  to  notice  here  the  French  metrical 
Romance  of  King  Horn  (Roman  du  Roi  Horn).  This  is  the  work 
of  a  poet  who  calls  himself  "  Mestre  Thomas,"  and  is  regarded  by 
Ritson  and  ^SI.  de  la  Rue  as  a  composition  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
twelfth  century,  and  as  the  original  of  the  English  Home  Childe, 
or  Geste  of  Kyng  Horn  ;  but  by  other  eminent  authorities,  such 
as  Bishop  Percy  and  the  late  learned  editor  of  Warton,  the  English 
poem  has  been  held  to  be  the  earlier  of  the  two  ;  and  in  this,  latter 
opinion  both  Mr.  Wright  and  Sir  F.  ]\Iadden  concur.  A  few  ex- 
tracts fi'om  this  French  Romance  were  given  by  Ritson  in  the 
notes  to  his  edition  of  the  English  Geste  (Ancient  English  Metri- 
cal Romances,  iii.  264-281)  ;  others  were  printed  by  M.  de  la  Rue 
(Essais  Hist.  ii.  251-260)  ;  and  a  complete  edition  by  M.  Fran- 
cisque  Michel  has  long  been  announced,  to  include  also  the  Eng- 
lish romance  from  a  text  prepared  by  Mr.  Wright.  Bishop  Percy 
ascribed  the  English  Kyng  Horn  to  so  early  a  date  as  "  within  a 
century  after  the  Conquest ;  "  and,  although  in  its  present  form  it 
is  probably  not  older  than  the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
Mr.  Price  has  no  hesitation  in  expressing  his  belief  that  it  owes  its 
origin  to  a  period  even  long  anterior  to  the  date  assigned  by  Percy .^ 

are  known.  This  first  scries  of  these  romances  consists  of  the  Roman  de  St.  Graal, 
or  tJie  liistory  of  the  Graal  before  its  pretended  arrival  in  Britain,  brouglit  by 
Joseph  of  Arimatliea ;  of  the  Roman  de  MerHn  ;  of  the  Roman  de  Lancelot  du 
Lac  ;  of  the  Quete  du  Saint  Graal,  which  is  a  sequel  to  the  adventures  of  Lancelot; 
and  of  tiie  death  of  King  Arthur,  forming  the  Roman  de  la  Mort  Arthus.  The  three 
latter  were  the  work  of  Mapes,  as  we  learn  from  the  concluding  paragraph  of  the 
Mort  Arthus,  and  from  a  later  writer  of  another  branch  of  the  series,  Helie  de  Bor- 
ron,  who  completed  the  Roman  de  Tristan  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  These 
autiiorities  appear  to  intimate  that  Mapes  translated  his  romances  from  a  Latin 
original,  which  is  distinctly  stated  in  some  of  the  manuscripts  ;  but  we  have  no 
other  evidence  of  tiie  existence  of  such  an  original,  and  it  is  probable  that  a  great 
iiart  of  the  incidents  of  the  story  was  the  work  of  the  writer's  own  imagination, 
the  whole  being  founded  on  popular  legends  then  floating  about."  —  Biog.  Brit. 
Lit ,  ii.  304. 

Mr.  Wright  adds  that  the  manuscripts  containing  this  series  of  pure  romances, 
though  rather  numerous,  are  nu)stly  no  older  than  the  latter  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century  and  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth,  no  one  being  known  wliich  can  bo 
assigned  to  the  age  in  which  the  authors  lived  ;  and  that  from  this  circumstance, 
and  the  fact  that  most  of  them  were  written  in  France,  they  cannot  be  regarded  as 
representing  accurately  the  language  in  which  they  were  originally  written. 

1  Warton  (edit,  of  1840),  i.  41. 


TRISTAN,   OR    IKISTKEM. 

To  the  author  of  the  Roi  Horn  or  to  another  Thomas  the  French 
metrical  Roman  de  Tristan  is  also  ascribed.  All  that  remains  of 
this  romance  is  a  fragment  of  1811  verses.^  There  can  hardly  be 
a  doubt  tliat  it  is  an  earlier  composition  than  the  English  Sir  Tris- 
trem,  pubhshed  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  from  the  Auchinleck  MS., 
and  attributed  by  him  to  Thomas  of  Ercildown,  styled  the  Rhymer, 
who  is  admitted  to  have  belonged  to  the  latter  part  of  the  thir- 
teenth century ;  but  whether  the  author  of  the  French  romance  be 
the  Thomas  of  Britany  referred  to  as  his  chief  authority  by  Got- 
fried  von  Strasburgh,  a  German  minstrel  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
by  whom  there  remains  a  long  metrical  romance,  in  his  own  lan- 
guage, on  the  subject  of  Sir  Tristrem,  — whether  he  be  the  same 
Thomas  to  whom  we  owe  the  Roman  du  Roi  Horn  (which  Scott 
was  also  inclined  to  claim  as  a  translation  from  another  English 
romance  of  his  Thomas  of  Ercildown),  —  and  what  maybe  the 
real  connection  between  either  the  French  or  the  German  Tristrem 
and  the  English,  —  as  well  as  whether  the  latter  work  be  the  Sir 
Tristrem  of  Thomas  of  Ercildown  mentioned  by  Robert  de  Brunne 
(in  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century),  —  or  to  what  age, 
country,  and  author  it  is  to  be  assigned,  — are  questions  upon  which 
we  cannot  enter.  They  will  be  found  profusely  discussed  in  Scott's 
Introduction  and  Notes  to  his  edition  of  Sir  Tristrem  (8vo.  Edinb. 
1803)  ;  in  a  long  Note,  in  reply  to  his  views,  by  Mr.  Price,  inserted 
at  the  end  of  the  first  volume  of  his  edition  of  Warton's  History 
(pp.  181-198,  and,  with  additional  notes  by  Mr.  Wright,  Sir  F. 
Madden,  and  the  late  Rev.  Richard  Garnett,  in  the  edition  of 
1840,  i.  95-112)  ;  in  an  Advertisement  by  Mr.  Lockhart,  prefixed 
to  his  republication  of  Scott's  volume  (12mo.  Edinb.  1833)  ;  in  M. 
de  la  Rue's  Essais  Historiques  (ii.  251-269)  ;  in  a  valuable  paper,, 
known  to  be  by  Sir  Frederick  Madden,  in  the  Gentleman's  Maga- 
zine for  October,  1833  (vol.  civ.,  pp.  307-312)  ;  and  in  M.  Michel's- 
elaborate  Introduction  to  his  publication  of  The  Poetical  Romances- 

1  There  is  another  fragment,  of  996  verses,  of  a  romance  of  Tristan,  which  ha* 
been  assumed  to  belong  to  the  same  work  ;  but  it  appears  now  to  be  agreed  that  the 
two  fragments  are  parts  of  two  different  poems  written  by  different  authors.  Ab- 
Ftracts,  in  Englisli,  by  the  late  Mr.  George  Ellis  are  given  of  both  in  the  Appendix 
to  Sir  Walter  Scott's  edition  of  the  English  Romance  of  Sir  Tristrem.  Both  were 
imong  the  MSS.  of  the  late  Mr.  Douce,  and  are  now  in  the  BwUeian  Library. 

VOL.    I.  19 


146  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  Tristan  in  French,  in  Anglo-Nonnan,  and  in   Greek  (2  vols. 
12mo.  London  and  Paris.  18:^.^^. 


GUERNES   DE   PONT   SAINTE  MAXENCE. 

M.  DE  LA  Rue  mentions,  in  one  of  his  papers  in  the  Arch^eologia, 
a  Life  of  Becket  in  French  verse  by  a  contemporary  of  the  name 
of  Guernes,  an  ecclesiastic  of  Pont  Sainte  Maxence,  in  Picardy, 
which  is  curious  from  the  statement  of  the  author  that  he  had  sev- 
eral times  read  his  composition  publicly  at  the  tomb  of  the  arch- 
bisliop.  This,  the  Abb^  observes,  Avould  seem  to  show  that,  in  the 
time  of  Henry  II.,  the  Romance  or  old  French  was  understood  in 
England  even  by  many  of  the  common  people.'  Guernes  appears 
to  have  begun  his  poem  in  France ;  but  he  came  over  to  England 
in  1172,  and  finished  it  here  in  1177.  It  consists  of  above  6000 
lines,  in  stanzas  in  each  of  which  all  the  verses  terminate  in  the 
same  rhyme.  The  only  manuscript  of  it  known  to  De  la  Rue  Avas 
one  in  the  Harleian  collection  (No.  270)  ;  but  another  has  since 
been  discovered  in  the  ducal  library  at  Wolfenblittel,  from  which 
the  poem  has  been  published  by  Immanuel  Bekker,  under  the  title 
of  Leben  des  h.  Thomas  von  Canterbury,  Altfranzosisch  (8vo. 
Berlin,  1838).  The  Wolfenbiittol  manuscript,  however,  wants  the 
beginning,  and  contains  only  about  5220  lines.^ 

^  Archajologia,  xii.  324. 

2  An  account  of  Guernes,  nearly  the  same  as  in  the  Archajologia,  is  given  by  De 
la  Eue  in  Iiis  Essais  (vol.  ii.  pp.  309-313),  under  the  name  of  Gervais  de  Pont 
Ste.  Maxence.  In  the  Harleian  MS.  the  poem  is  entitled,  in  Latin,  Vita  Thome 
Cantuar.  per  Guernes  de  Ponte  Sti  Maxentii.  This  title  is  in  a  more  recent  hand 
than  the  poem  ;  and  under  "  Guernes  "  is  written  "  Garnerius."  He  is  called  "  Ger- 
vais," or  "  Gerveis,"  by  the  transcriber  of  anotiicr  work.  "  This  poem,"  says  Mr 
Wright,  "  is  especially  valuable  in  a  philological  point  of  view,  because  we  know 
the  exact  date  at  which  it  was  written.     It  is  historically  important  as  the  earliest 

of  the  Lives  of  Becket.  Guernes  tells  us that  he  had  collected  his  materials  from 

Becket's  friends  and  acquaintance,  that  he  had  repeatedly  and  carefully  corrected  it, 
and  that  he  had  read  it  many  times  at  the  martyr's  tomb.  His  narrative  is  very 
clear  and  vigorous,  and  furni.shes  valuable  information  not  found  in  the  same  detail 
m  the  other  biographers."—  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  32'J. 


HERMAN. 

A  WRITER  named  Herman,  who  calls  himself  a  priest,  and  was 
no  doubt  of  English  bii'th,  is  the  author  of  several  religious  ro- 
mance poems  :  —  a  Life  of  Tobias,  in  about  1400  verses,  written 
at  the  request  of  William,  prior  of  Kenilworth,  in  Warwickshire 
(Keneilleworth  en  Ardenne)  ;  another,  of  1152  verses,  on  the  birth 
of  the  Redeemer,  entitled  Les  Joies  de  Notre  Dame ;  a  third,  of 
841  verses,  on  a  curious  theme,  —  Smoke,  Rain,  and  Woman  con- 
sidered as  the  three  disturbers  of  a  man's  domestic  comforts,  — 
which  was  given  him,  it  seems,  by  Alexander,  bishop  of  Lincoln  ; 
a  fourth,  in  712  verses,  on  the  Miracles  of  Magdalen  of  Marseilles  ; 
a  fifth,  on  the  life,  death,  and  burial  of  the  Virgin  Mary  ;  a  sixth» 
a  sort  of  mysteiy,  or  scriptural  drama,  on  the  divine  scheme  of 
redemption,  also  written  at  the  request  of  the  prior  of  Kenilworth  ; 
and  a  seventh,  a  History  of  the  ten  ancient  Sibyls,  extending  to 
2496  verses,  wdiich  professes  to  be  a  translation  from  the  Latin,  and 
which  he  composed  at  the  desire  of  the  Empress  Matilda.  The 
era  of  this  poet  is  ascertained  from  that  of  his  patron,  Alexander, 
bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  died  in  1147,  and  that  of  Matilda,  who  died 
in  1167,  while  he  was  employed  on  his  last-mentioned  work. 


HUGH   OF   RUTLAND.  — BOSON.— SIMON   DU   FRESNE. 

Other  English  trouveurs  of  the  same  age  were  Hughes  de 
Rotelande,  or  Hugh  of  Rutland,  who  lived,  it  seems,  according  to 
his  own  account,  at  Credenhill  in  Cornwall,^  and  who  is  the  author 
of  two  romances,  each  containing  between  10,000  and  11,000  ver- 
ses, the  Roman  d'Ypomedon  and  its  continuation  the  Roman  de 
Protesilaus,  which  are  remarkable  as  having  their  scene  in  Magna 
Graecia,  or  the  south  of  Italy,  and  as  not  drawing  their  subject 
from  the  Welsh  or  Armorican  legends  of  Arthur  and  his  Knignts 
of  the  Round  Table,  Avhich  were  now  become  the  common  source 
of  the  chivalrous  romance  :  ^  a  religious  poet  of  the  name  of  Boson, 
from  whom  we  have  a  volume  of  lives  of  nine  of  the  Saints,  and 

1  There  is  a  place  of  this  name  in  Hereford. 

2  See  an  account  of  these  two  poems  in  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  ii.  285-296. 


148  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

who  the  Abb^  de  la  Rue  thinks  may  have  been  the  same  person 
with  a  learned  tlieologian  of  that  name  who  was  nephew  and  secre- 
tary to  Pope  Adrian  IV. ;  ^  and  Simon  du  Fresne,  canon  of  the 
Cathedral  of  Hereford  (sometimes  called  by  later  authorities  Simon 
Ash),  the  ft-iend  and  correspondent  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  and 
well  known  amono;  the  Latin  versifiers  of  his  time,  who  has  left  us 
a  French  poem  of  considerable  merit  entitled  in  one  manuscript 
Dicti^  du  Clerc  et  de  la  Philosophie,  in  another  Romance  Dame 
Fortunee,  founded  on  the  fivorite  classic  work  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
Boethius  De  Consolatione  Philosophiae.^ 


CARDINAL   LANGTON. 

De  la  Rue  has  introduced  among  his  Anglo-Norman  poets  of 
the  twelfth  or  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  great 
Stephen  Langton,  who  was  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  fi'om  1207 
to  1228,  and  also  a  cardinal.  The  only  undoubted  specimen  of 
Cardinal  Langton's  French  poetry  occurs,  strangely  enough,  in  the 
course  of  one  of  his  Latin  Sermons  (preserved  in  one  of  the  Arun- 
del MSS.,  now  in  the  British  Museum),  where,  deserting  his  prose 
and  the  more  learned  language,  he  suddenly  breaks  out  into  song 
in  the  idiom  of  the  trouveurs,  and,  after  having  pronounced  eight 
irracefal  and  livelv  lines  relating;  how  "  belle  Alice"  rose  betimes. 
and,  having  bedecked  herself,  went  out  into  a  garden  and  there 
gathered  five  flowers  which  she  wove  into  a  chaplet,  proceeds 
throughout  the  remainder  of  the  discourse  to  make  a  mystical  ap- 
plication of  the  several  points  of  this  little  anecdote  to  the  Holy 
Virgin  — exclaiming  at  the  close  of  each  enthusiastic  paragraph, 

Ceste  est  la  bele  Aliz, 

Ceste  est  la  flur,  ceste  est  le  lis. 

(She  is  the  fair  Alice, 

She  is  the  flower,  she  is  the  lily,)' 

"  It  will  be  admitted,"  remarks  the  Abbe  de  la  Rue,  "  that  the 
taste  for  French  poetry  must  have  been  very  general  in  England 

1  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  ii.  pp.  297-300. 

2  Id.  pp.  329-834      Sec  also  Wright,  Bio!?.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  349,  350. 

8  Mr.  Wright  has  printed  the  entire  sermon,  in  his  Biog.  Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  446,  447 


KING   RICHARD   CCEUR-DE-LION.  149 

when  we  find  the  chief  prelate  of  the  kingdom  taking  this  way  of 
concihating  the  attention  of  his  audience."  The  Abbe  thinks  it 
highly  probable  that  Cardinal  Langton  is  also  the  author  of  two 
poetical  pieces  which  occur  in  the  same  manuscript  with  his  ser- 
mon ;  the  first  a  little  theological  drama  on  the  subject  of  the 
Fall  and  Restoration  of  Man,  the  other  a  canticle  or  song,  of  126 
strophes,  on  the  Passion  of  Christ.  Both  are  stated  to  be  of  con- 
siderable merit. 


KING    RICHARD   C(EUR-DE-LION. 

Finally,  we  have  to  enroll  in  this  list  of  the  early  English 
writers  of  French  poetry  the  renowned  King  Richard  I.,  if  we 
may  put  faith  in  old  tradition.  Among  the  poetical  performances 
attributed  to  Richard  are  several  Sirventes  or  Serventois}  and  his 
share  in  the  song  formerly  composed  between  them,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  well-known  story,  discovered  him  in  his  prison  to  his 
faithful  minstrel  Blondel,  the  strain  begun  by  the  latter  having 
been  taken  up  and  finished  by  the  king.  But  all  this,  it  must  be 
confessed,  is  not  so  clear  or  certain  as  were  to  be  desired.  The 
song  said  to  have  been  sung  by  Richard  and  Blondel  was  printed 
by  Mademoiselle  I'Heritier  in  her  volume  entitled  La  Tour  Tend- 
breuse  et  les  Jours  Lumineux,  12mo.  Paris,  1705  ;  it  is  in  mixed 
Norman  and  Provencal ;  but,  unfortunately,  the  manuscript  from 
which  it  professes  to  have  been  extracted  is  now  unknown.  Mile. 
I'Heritier  also  prints  as  a  composition  of  Richard  a  love-song  in 
Norman  French.  Bu^t  the  most  celebrated  composition  attributed 
to  Richard  is  a  poem  addressed  by  him  from  his  prison  to  his  bar- 
ons of  England,  Normandy,  Poitou,  and  Gascony,  remonstrating 
with  them  for  suffering  him  to  remain  so  long  a  captive.  A  Pro- 
vencal version  of  this  poem,  one  of  the  stanzas  of  which  only  had 
been  previously  quoted  by  Crescimbini  in  his  Istoria  della  Volgar 
Poesia,  was  first  printed  fi"om  a  manuscript  in  the  library  of  San 
Lorenzo  at  Florence  by  Horace  Walpole,  in  his  Catalogue  of  Royal 

^  M.  de  la  Rue  shows  that,  originally  and  properly,  a  Serventois,  or  Sirvente  (the 
former  the  northern,  the  latter  the  southern  term),  was  a  poem  relating  to  military 
affairs,  from  serventaginm  or  sirventagiuin,  the  low  Latin  for  servitiuin,  service ;  accord- 
.'.ng  to  the  definition  in  Ducange,  "  Poemata  in  quibus  servieiiiium  seu  militum  facta 
et  servitia  referuntur." 


150  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  Noble  Aithors,  1758.  It  consists  of  six  stanzas  of  six  line? 
each,  with  an  Envoy  of  five  hnes.  Two  Enghsh  verse  translations 
of  it  have  been  produced  ;  one  by  Dr.  Burney,  in  his  Histoiy  of 
Music,  the  other  by  the  late  Mr.  George  Elhs,  which  is  given  in 
Park's  edition  of  the  Royal  iind  Noble  Authors.  More  recently, 
the  appearance  of  a  version  of  the  same  poem  in  Norman  French 
in  Sismondi's  Litt^rature  du  Midi  de  I'Europe  (vol.  i.  p.  149),  has 
raised  the  question  in  which  of  the  two  dialects  it  was  originally 
written.^  Meanwhile  the  Provencal  version  has  been  more  cor- 
rectly republished  by  Raynouard  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  Choix 
des  Poesies  Originales  des  Troubadours.  And  the  poetical  repu- 
tation of  Richard  has  been  also  enlarged  by  the  appearance  of 
another  Proven9al  song  claiming  to  be  of  his  inditing  in  the  Par- 
nasse  Occitanien  (by  the  Comte  de  Rochegude),  2  vols.  8vo.,  Tou- 
louse, 1819.  It  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  any  or  all  of  these 
effusions,  supposmg  their  authenticity  to  be  admitted,  tend  to  give 
us  a  hio;h  idea  of  the  genius  of  the  lion-hearted  kino;  in  this  line, 
—  even  if  we  should  not  go  the  length  of  Walpole,  who  declares 
the  particular  poem  he  has  printed  to  be  so  poor  a  composition  that 
the  internal  evidence  weighs  with  him  more  than  anytliing  else  to 
believe  it  of  liis  majesty's  own  fabric.^ 


VERNACULAR  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  :-=:^  A.  D.  1066-1216. 

From  the  Norman  Conquest  to  the  termination  of  the  reign  of 
the  seventh  Norman  sovereign,  King  John,  is  almost  exactly  a  cen- 
tuiy  and  a  half,  even  to  a  day.  The  victory  of  Hastings  was  gain- 
ed on  the  14th  of  October,  1066,  and  John  died  on  the  19th  of  Oc- 
tober, 1216.  His  death,  happening  at  the  time  it  did,  was  prob- 
ably an  event  of  the  greatest  importance.  The  political  constitu- 
tion, or  system  of  government,  established  by  the  Conquest,  —  a  sys- 
tem of  pure  monarchy  or  absolutism  —  had  been  formally  brought 
to  an  end  the  year  before  by  the  gi-ant  of  the  Great  Charter  wrung 
from    the  crown    hy  the  baronage,   which  at  any   rate   tempered 

^  See  it  also  in  M.  liO  Koiix  de  Lincy's  Recucil  de  Ciiaiits  Ilistoriques  (1842), 
i.  56. 

■•'  See,  for  notit-es  of  other  comi)()sitioiis  attributed  to  Kieliard,  Wright's  Biog. 
Brit.  Lit.,  ii.  321-327. 


VERNACULAR  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERAl  URE.        151 

ihe  monarchical  despotism  by  the  introduction  of  the  aristocratic 
element  into  the  theory  of  the  constitution ;  but  this  might  have 
proved  little  more  than  a  theoretical  or  nominal  innovation  if  John 
had  lived.  His  death,  and  the  non-age  of  his  son  and  heir,  left  the 
actual  management  of  affairs  in  the  hands  of  those  by  whom  the 
constitutional  reform  had  been  brought  about ;  and  that  reform  be- 
came a  practical  reality.  At  the  least,  its  legal  character  and  au- 
thority never  were  disputed  ;  no  attempt  ever  was  made  to  repeal 
it ;  on  the  contrary  it  was  ratified  no  less  than  six  times  in  the  sin- 
gle reign  of  Henry  III.,  John's  successor ;  and  it  has  retained  its 
proper  place  at  the  head  of  the  Statute  Book  down  to  our  own 
day.  Its  proper  place  ;  for  it  is  indeed  our  first  organic  law,  the 
true  commencement  or  foundation-stone,  of  the  constitution.  Be- 
fore it  there  was  no  mechanism  in  our  political  system,  no  balance 
of  forces  or  play  of  counteracting  elements  and  tendencies  ;  noth- 
ing but  the  sort  of  life  and  movement  that  may  belong  to  a  stone 
or  a  cannon-ball  or  any  other  mere  mass.  The  royal  power  was 
all  in  all.  With  the  Charter,  and  the  death  of  the  last  despotic 
kinix,  from  whom  it  was  extorted,  begins  another  order  of  things 
both  political  and  social.  It  may  be  likened  to  the  passing  away 
of  the  night  and  the  dawning  of  a  new  day.  In  particular,  the 
Charter  may  be  said  to  have  consummated  by  a  solemn  legislative 
fiat  the  blending  and  incorporation  of  the  two  races,  the  conquer- 
ors and  the  con:iuered,  which  had  been  actively  going  on  without 
any  such  sanction,  and  under  the  natural  influence  of  circumstan- 
ces only,  throughout  the  preceding  half  century,  —  having  com- 
menced, we  may  reckon,  perhaps,  half  a  century  earlier,  or  about 
the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Henry  I.  There  is,  at  least,  not  a 
word  in  this  law  making  the  least  reference  to  any  distinction 
between  the  two  races.  Both  are  spoken  of  throughout  only  as 
English  ;  the  nation  is  again  recognized  as  one,  as  fully  as  it 
aad  been  before  either  William  the  Norman  or  Canute  the  Dane. 
We  have  thus  four  successive  periods  of  about  half  a  century 
3ach  :  —  The  first,  from  the  Danish  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  — 
half  English,  half  Danish  ;  the  second,  from  the  Norman  Conquest 
to  the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Henry  I.,  in  which  the  subjugated 
English  and  their  French  or  Norman  rulers  were  completely 
divided  ;  the  Third  and  Fourth  extending  to  the  date  of  Magna 
Charta,  and  presenting,  the  former  the  comparatively  slow,  the 
Jitter  the  accelerated,  process  of  the  intermixture  and  fusion  of 


162  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

the  two  races.  Some  of  our  old  clironiclers  would  make  the  tliird 
half  century  also,  as  well  as  the  first  and  second,  to  have  been  in- 
auo-urated  by  a  great  constitutional  or  political  event :  as  the  year 
1016  is  mem^irable  for  the  Danish  and  the  year  1066  for  the  Nor- 
man Conquest,  so  in  1116,  we  are  told  by  Stow,  "  On  the  19th  day 
of  April,  King  Henry  called  a  council  of  all  the  States  of  his 
realm,  both  of  the  Prelates,  Nobles,  and  Commons,  to  Salisbury, 
there  to  consult  for  the  good  government  of  the  Commonwealth, 
and  the  weighty  affairs  of  the  same,  which  council,  taking  the 
name  and  feme  of  the  French,  is  called  a  Parliament ;  "  "  and  this," 
he  adds,  "  do  the  historiographers  note  to  be  the  first  Parliament 
in  England,  and  that  the  kings  before  that  time  were  never'  wont 
to  call  any  of  their  Commons  or  people  to  council  or  lawmaking." 
This  theory  of  the  origin  of  our  parliamentary  government  must, 
indeed,  be  rejected ;  ^  but  the  year  1116  will  still  remain  notable 
as  that  in  which  Henry,  reversing  what  had  been  done  fifty  years 
before,  crossed  the  sea  with  an  army  of  English  to  reduce  his  an- 
cestral Normandy,  or  prevent  it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
son  of  his  unfortunate  elder  brother.  Even  the  next  stage,  half  a 
century  further  on,  when  we  have  supposed  the  amalgamation  of 
the  two  races  to  have  assumed  its  accelerated  movement,  may  be 
held  to  be  less  precisely  indicated  by  such  events  as  the  appoint- 
ment of  Becket,  said  to  be  the  first  Englishman  since  the  Conquest 
promoted  to  high  office  either  in  the  Church  or  the  State,  to  the 
archbishopric  of  Canterbury  in  1161,  —  the  enactment  in  1164  of 
the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon,  by  which  the  clergy,  a  body  essen- 
tially foreign  in  feeling  and  to  a  great  extent  even  of  foreign  birth, 
were  brought  somewhat  more  under  subjection  to  the  law  of  the 
land  —  and  the  Conquest  of  Ireland  in  1172,  to  the  vast  exaltation 
of  the  English  name  and  power. 

What  was  the  history  of  the  vernacular  language  for  this  first 
century  and  a  half  after  the  Norman  Conquest,  throughout  which 
everything  native  would  thus  seem  to  have  been  in  a  course  of 
crradual  re-emergence  from  the  general  foreign  inundation  that  had 
overwhelmed  the  country  ?  We  have  no  historical  record  or  state- 
ment as  to  this  matter  :  the  question  can  only  be  answered,  in  so 
far  as  it  can  be  answered  at  all,  from  an  examination  of  such  com- 
positions of  the  time  in  the  vernacular  tongue  as  may  have  come 
lown  to  us. 

1  See  Sir  H.  Spclmari,  Concilia;  ad  an.  1116. 


VERNACULAR   LANGUAGE   AND   LITERATURE.  15^ 

/The  principal  literature  of  this  period,  it  will  have  been  seen 
A'om  the  above  notices,  was  in  the  Latin  and  French  languages. 
In  the  former  were  written  most  works  on  subjects  of  theology, 
philosophy,  and  history ;  in  the  latter  most  of  those  intended  rather 
to  amuse  than  to  inform,  and  addressed,  not  to  students  and  profes- 
sional readers,  but  to  the  idlers  of  the  court  and  the  upper  classes, 
by  whom  they  were  seldom  actually  read,  or  much  expected  to  be 
read,  but  only  listened  to  as  they  were  recited  or  chanted  (for  most 
of  them  were  in  verse)  by  others.!  How  far  over  society  such  a 
knowledge  of  the  imported  tongue  came  to  extend  as  was  requisite 
for  the  understanding  and  enjoyment  of  what  was  thus  written  in 
it  has  been  matter  of  dispute^  The  Abbd  de  la  Rue  conceives  that 
a  large  proportion  even  of  the  middle  classes,  and  of  the  town 
population  generally,  must  have  been  so  far  frenchified ;  but  later 
authorities  look  upon  this  as  an  extravagant  supposition.^ 

It  is,jat  all  events,  this  French  literature  only  that  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  having  come  into  competition  with,  or  to  have  taken  the 
place,  of  the  old  vernacular  literatui-e.J  The  employment  of  the  Latin 
language  in  writing  by  monks,  secular  churchmen,  and  other  per- 
sons who  had  had  a  learned  education,  was  what  had  always  gone 
on  in  England  as  in  every  other  country  of  Western  Christendom ; 
there  was  nothing  new  in  that ;  we  continue  to  have  it  after  the 
Conquest  just  as  we  had  it  before  the  Conquest.  But  it  is  quite 
otherwise  with  the  writing  of  French ;  that  was  altogether  a  new 
thing  in  England,  and  indeed  very  much  of  a  new  thing  every- 
where, in  the  eleventh  century :  no  specimen  of  composition  in  the 
Langue  d'Oyl,  in  fact,  either  in  verse  or  in  prose,  has  come  down  to 
us  from  beyond  that  century,  nor  is  there  reason  to  believe  that  it 
had  been  much  earlier  turned  to  account  for  literary  purposes  even 
in  France  itself.  The  great  mass  of  the  oldest  French  literature 
that  has  been  preserved  was  produced  in  England,  or,  at  any  rate, 
in  the  dominions  of  the  King  of  England,  in  the  twelfth  century. 

To  whatever  portion  of  society  in  England  an  acquaintance  with 
this  French  literature  was  confined,  it  is  evident  that  it  was  for 
some  time  after  the  Conquest  the  only  literature  of  the  day  that, 
without  addressing  itself  exclusively  to  the  learned  classes,  still 
demanded  some  measure  of  cultivation  in  its  readers  or  auditors 
as  well  as  in  its  authors.  It  was  the  only  popular  literature  that 
»vas  not  adapted  to  the  mere  populace.  We  might  infer  this  even 
from  the  fact  that,  if  any  other  ever  existed,  it  has  mostly  perished. 

VOL.  I.  20 


154  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

The  various  metrical  chronicles,  romances,  and  other  compositions 
in  the  French  tongue,  of  the  principal  of  which  an  account  has 
been  given,  are  very  nearly  the  only  literary  works  which  have 
come  down  to  us  from  this  age.  And,  while  the  mass  of  this  pro- 
duce that  has  been  preserved  is,  as  we  have  seen,  very  considera- 
ble, we  have  distinct  notices  of  much  more  which  is  now  lost.  How 
the  French  language  should  have  acquired  the  position  wdiich  it 
thus  appears  to  have  held  in  England  for  some  time  after  the  Con- 
quest is  easily  explained.  The  advantage  which  it  derived  from 
being  the  language  of  the  court,  of  the  entire  body  of  the  nobility, 
and  of  the  opulent  and  influential  classes  generally,  is  obvious. 
This  not  only  gave  it  the  prestige  and  attraction  of  what  we  now 
call  fashion,  but,  in  the  circumstances  to  which  the  country  was 
reduced,  Avould  very  speedily  make  it  the  only  language  in  which 
any  kind  of  regular  or  grammatical  traming  could  be  obtained. 
With  the  native  population  almost  everywhere  deprived  of  its 
natural  leaders,  the  old  landed  proprietary  of  its  own  blood,  it  can- 
not be  supposed  that  schools  in  which  the  reading  and  writing  of 
the  vernacular  tongue  was  taught  could  continue  to  subsist.  This 
has  been  often  pointed  out.  But  Avhat  we  may  call  the  social 
cause,  or  that  arising  out  of  the  relative  conditions  of  the  two 
races,  was  probably  assisted  by  another  which  has  not  been  so 
much  attended  to.  The  languages  themselves  did  not  compete 
upon  fair  terms.  The  French  would  have  in  the  general  estima- 
tion a  decided  advantage  for  the  purposes  of  literature  over  the 
English.  The  latter  was  held  universally  to  be  merely  a  barbarous 
form  of  speech,  claiming  kindi-ed  with  nothing  except  the  other 
half-articulate  dialects  of  the  woods,  hardly  one  of  which  had  ever 
known  what  it  was  to  have  any  acquaintance  with  letters,  or  was 
conceived  even  by  those  who  spoke  it  to  be  fit  to  be  used  in  writing 
excej)t  on  the  most  vulgar  occasions,  or  where  anything  like  either 
dignity  or  precision  of  expression  was  of  no  importance ;  the  for- 
mer, although  somewhat  soiled  and  disfigured  by  ill  usage  received 
at  the  hands  of  the  uneducated  multitude,  and  also  only  recently 
much  employed  in  formal  or  artistic  eloquence,  could  still  boast  the 
most  honorable  of  all  pedigrees  as  a  daughter  of  the  Latin,  and 
A'as  thus  besides  allied  to  the  popular  speech  of  every  more  civilized 
province  of  Western  Christendom.  The  very  name  by  which  it 
nad  been  known  when  it  first  attracted  attention  Avith  refeience  to 
hterary  capabilities  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Rustic  Latin,  or 


VEKNACULAR   LA^^GUAGE   AND    LITERATURE.  155 

Roman  (^Liyigua  Romana  Rustica).  Even  without  being  favored 
by  circumstances,  as  it  was  in  the  present  case,  a  tongvie  having 
these  intrinsic  recommendations  would  not  have  been  easily  worsted, 
in  a  contest  for  the  preference  as  the  organ  of  fashionable  htera- 
ture,  by  such  a  competitor  as  the  unknown  and  unconnected 
English. 

There  was  only  one  great  advantage  possessed  by  the  national 
tongue  with  which  it  was  impossible  for  the  other  in  the  long  run 
to  cope.  This  was  the  fact  of  its  being  the  national  tongue,  the 
speech,  actual  and  ancestral,  of  the  great  body  of  the  people. 
Even  that,  indeed,  might  not  have  enabled  it  to  mauatala  its 
ground,  if  it  had  been  a  mere  unwritten  form  of  speech.  But  it 
had  been  cultivated  and  trained  for  centuries  botli  by  the  practice 
of  composition,  in  prose  as  well  as  in  verse,  and  by  the  application 
to  it  of  the  art  of  the  grammarian.  It  already  possessed  a  litera- 
ture considerable  in  volume,  and  embracing  a  variety  of  depart- 
ments. It  was  not  merely  something  floating  upon  men's  breath, 
but  had  a  substantial  existence  hi  poems  and  histories,  in  libraries 
and  parchments.  In  that  state  it  might  cease,  in  the  storai  of  na- 
tional calamity,  to  be  generally  either  written  or  read,  but  even 
its  more  literary  inflections  and  consti'uctions  would  be  less  likely 
to  fall  into  complete  and  universal  oblivion.  The  memory,  at 
least,  of  its  old  renown  would  not  altogether  die  away  ;  and  that 
alone  would  be  found  to  be  much  when,  after  a  time,  it  began  to 
be  again,  although  in  a  somewhat  altered  form,  employed  in  writing. 

The  nature  of  the  altered  form  which  distinguishes  the  written 
vernacular  tongue  when  it  reappears  after  the  Norman  Conquest 
from  the  aspect  it  presents  before  that  date  (or  the  earhest  modern 
English  from  what  is  commonly  designated  Saxon  or  Anglo-Saxon) 
is  not  matter  of  dispute.  "  The  substance  of  the  change,"  to  adopt 
the  words  of  Mr.  Price,  the  late  learned  editor  of  Warton,  "  is 
admitted  on  all  hands  to  consist  in  the  suppression  of  those  gram- 
matical intricacies  occasioned  by  the  inflection  of  nouns,  the  seem- 
ingly arbitrary  distinctions  of  gender,  the  government  of  preposi- 
tions, &c."  ^  It  was,  in  fact,  the  conversion  of  an  inflectional  into 
a  non-inflectional,  of  a  synthetic  into  an  analytic,  language.  The 
syntactical  connection  of  words,  and  the  modification  of  the  mental 
conceptions  which  they  represent,  was  indicated,  no  longer,  in  gen- 
ei'al,  by  tl  ose  variations  which  constitute  what  are  called  declen- 
^  Preface  to  Warton's  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poetry,  p.  86. 


156  ENCxLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

sion  and  coiiju«fution,  but  hy  sejmrate  particles,  or  simply  by  juxta- 
position ;  and  whatever  seemed  to  admit  of  being  neglected  without 
injury  to  the  prime  object  of  expressing  the  meaning  of  the  speaker, 
or  writer,  —  no  matter  what  other  purposes  it  might  serve  of  a 
merely  ornamental  or  artistic  nature,  —  was  ruthlessly  dispensed 
with. 

A  change  such  as  this  is  unquestionably  the  breaking  up  of  a 
language.  In  the  first  instance,  at  least,  it  amounts  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  much  that  is  most  characteristic  of  the  language,  —  of  all 
that  constitutes  its  beauty  to  the  educated  mind,  imbued  with  a 
feeling  for  the  literature  into  which  it  has  been  wa*ought,  —  of 
something,  probably,  even  of  its  precision  as  well  as  of  its  expres- 
siveness in  a  higher  sense.  It  has  become,  in  a  manner,  but  the 
skeleton  of  what  it  was,  or  the  skeleton  with  only  the  skin  hanging 
loose  upon  it :  —  all  the  covering  and  rounding  flesh  gone.  Or  we 
may  say  it  is  the  language  no  longer  with  its  old  natural  bearing 
and  suitable  attire,  but  reduced  to  the  rags  and  squalor  of  a  beggar. 
Or  it  may  be  compared  to  a  material  edifice,  once  bright  with  many 
of  the  attractions  of  decorative  architecture,  now  stripped  of  all 
its  splendors  and  left  only  a  collection  of  bare  and  dilaj^idated 
walls.  It  may  be,  too,  that,  as  is  commonly  assumed,  a  synthetic 
tongue  is  essentially  a  nobler  and  more  effective  instrument  of 
expression  than  an  analytic  one,  —  that,  often  comprising  a  whole 
sentence,  or  at  least  a  Avhole  clause,  in  a  word,  it  presents  thoughts 
and  emotions  in  flashes  and  pictures  where  the  other  can  only  em- 
ploy comparatively  dead  conventional  signs.  But  perhaps  the  com- 
parison has  been  too  commonly  made  between  the  synthetic  tongue 
in  its  perfection  and  the  analytic  one  while  only  in  its  rudimentary 
state.  The  language  may  be  considered  to  have  changed  its  con- 
stitution, somewhat  like  a  country  which  should  have  ceased  to  be 
a  monarchy  and  become  a  rejniblic.  The  new  political  system 
could  only  be  fairly  compared  with  the  old  one,  and  the  balance 
struck  between  the  advantages  of  the  one  and  those  of  the  other, 
after  tlie  former  should  have  had  time  fully  to  develop  itself  under 
the  operation  of  its  own  peculiar  principles.  Even  if  it  be  inferior 
upon  the  whole,  and  for  the  highest  purposes,  an  analytic  language 
may  perhaps  have  some  recommendations  which  a  synthetic  one 
does  not  possess.  It  may  not  be  either  more  natural  or,  properly 
speaking,  more  simple,  for  the  original  constitution  of  most,  if  not 
Df  all,  languages  seems  to  have  been  synthetic,  and  a  synthetic 


VERNACULAR   LANGUAGE   AND   LITERATURE.  157 

language  is  as  easy  both  to  acquire  and  to  wield  as  an  analytic  one 
to  those  to  Avhom  it  is  native  ;  nor  can  the  latter  be  said  to  be  more 
rational  or  philosophical  than  the  former,  for,  as  being  in  the  main 
natural  products,  and  not  artificial  contrivances,  languages  must  be 
held  to  stand  all  on  an  equality  in  respect  of  the  reasonableness  at 
least  of  the  principle  on  which  they  are  constituted  ;  but  yet,  if 
comparatively  defective  in  poetical  expressiveness,  analytic  lan- 
guages will  probably  be  found,  whenever  they  have  been  suffi- 
ciently cultivated,  to  be  capable,  in  pure  exposition,  of  rendering 
thought  with  superior  minuteness  and  distinctness  of  detail.  With 
their  small  tenacity  or  cohesion,  they  penetrate  into  every  chink 
and  fold,  like  water  or  fine  dust. 

But  the  great  question  in  every  case  of  the  apparent  conversion 
of  a  synthetic  into  an  analytic  language  is,  how,  or  under  the 
operation  of  what  cause  or  causes,  the  change  was  brought  about. 
In  the  particular  case  before  us,  for  instance,  what  was  it  that  con- 
verted the  form  of  our  vernacular  tongue  which  we  find  alone 
employed  in  writing  before  the  Norman  Conquest  into  the  com- 
paratively uninflected  form  in  which  it  appears  in  the  generality 
of  the  compositions  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  first 
ages  after  that  great  political  and  social  catastrophe  ? 

First,  however,  we  may  remark  that  there  is  no  proof  of  the 
latter  form  having  been  really  new,  or  of  recent  origin,  about  the 
time  of  the  Conquest.  All  that  we  can  assert  is,  that  soon  after 
that  date  it  first  appears  in  writing.  If  it  was  ever  so  employed 
before,  no  earlier  specimens  of  it  have  been  preserved.  It  Avas 
undoubtedly  the  form  of  the  language  popularly  in  use  at  the  time 
when  it  thus  first  presents  itself  in  our  national  literature.  But 
did  it  not  exist  as  an  oral  dialect  long  before  ?  May  it  not  have  so 
existed  from  the  remotest  antiquity  alongside  of  the  more  artificial 
form  which  was  exclusively,  or  at  least  usually,  employed  in  writ- 
ing? It  has  been  supposed  that  even  the  classical  Greek  and 
Latin,  siich  as  we  find  in  books,  may  have  always  been  accom- 
panied each  by  another  form  of  speech,  of  looser  texture,  and 
probably  more  of  an  analytical  character,  which  served  for  the 
ordinary  oral  intercourse  of  the  less  educated  population,  and  of 
which  it  has  even  been  conjectured  we  may  have  some  much  dis- 
guised vestige  or  resemblance  in  the  modern  Romaic  and  Italian. 
The  rise,  at  any  rate,  of  what  Avas  long  a  merely  oral  dialect  into 
a  languag'^.  capable  of  being  employed  in  literature,  and  of  thereby 


158  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

being  gradually  so  trained  and  improved  as  to  supplant  and  take 
the  place  of  the  ancient  more  highly  inflected  and  otherwise  more 
artificial  literary  language  of  the  country,  is  illustrated  by  what  is 
known  to  have  happened  in  France  and  other  continental  provinces 
of  the  old  Empire  of  the  West,  whei'e  the  Romana  Rustica,  as  it 
was  called,  which  was  a  corrupted  or  broken-down  form  of  the 
proper  Latin,  after  having  been  for  some  centuries  only  orally 
used,  came  to  be  written  as  well  as  spoken,  and,  having  been  first 
taken  into  the  service  of  the  more  popular  kinds  of  literature, 
ended  by  becoming  the  language  of  all  literature  and  the  only 
national  speech.  So  in  this  country  there  may  possibly  have  been 
in  use  for  colloquial  purposes  a  dialect  of  a  similar  character  to 
our  modern  analytic  English  even  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
old  spithetic  English ;  and  the  two  forms  of  the  language,  the 
refmlar  and  the  irregular,  the  learned  and  the  vulgar,  the  mother 
and  the  daughter,  or  rather,  if  you  will,  the  elder  and  the  younger 
sister,  may  have  subsisted  together  for  many  centuries,  till  there 
came  a  crisis  which  for  a  time  laid  the  entire  fabric  of  the  old 
national  civilization  in  the  dust,  when  the  rude  and  hardy  charac- 
ter of  the  one  carried  it  through  the  storm  which  the  more 
delicate  structure  of  the  other  could  ijot  stand. 

Or  was  the  written  English  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies the  same  English  (or  Anglo-Saxon)  that  was  written  in  the 
ninth  and  tenth,  only  modified  by  that  process  of  gradual  change 
the  principle  of  which  was  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  the  lan- 
guage ?  Was  the  former  neither  the  sister  nor  the  daughter  of 
the  latter,  but  the  latter  merely  at  a  different  stage  of  its  natural 
growth  ?  This  is  the  view  that  has  been  maintained  by  some 
eminent  authorities.  The  late  Mr.  Price,  acknowledging  it  to  be 
a  matter  beyond  dispute  "  that  some  change  had  taken  place  in 
the  style  of  composition  and  general  structure  of  the  language  " 
from  the  end  of  the  ninth  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  adds : 
—  "  But  that  these  mutations  were  a  consequence  of  the  Norman 
invasion,  or  were  even  accelerated  by  that  event,  is  wholly  incapa- 
ble of  proof;  and  nothing  is  supported  upon  a  firmer  principle  of 
rational  induction,  than  that  the  same  effects  would  have  ensued,  if 
William  and  his  followers  had  remained  in  their  native  soil."  ^ 
The  change,  as  we  have  seen,  may  be  said  to  have  amounted  to 
Aie  transformation  of  the  language  from  one  of  a  synthetic  to  one 
1  Preface  to  Warton,  85. 


VERNACULAR   LANGUAGE   AND   LITERATURE.         159 

of  an  analytic  constitution  oi'  structure  ;  but  Mr.  Price  contends 
that,  whether  it  is  to  be  considered  as  the  result  of  an  innate  law 
of  the  language,  or  of  some  general  law  in  the  organization  of 
those  who  spoke  it,  its  having  been  in  no  way  dependent  upon  ex- 
ternal circumstances,  —  upon  foreign  influence  or  political  disturb- 
ances, —  is  established  by  the  undeniable  fact  that  every  other 
language  of  the  Low-German  stock  displays  the  same  simplification 
of  its  grammar.  "  In  all  these  languages,"  he  observes,  "  there 
has  been  a  constant  tendency  to  relieve  themselves  of  that  pre- 
cision which  chooses  a  fresh  symbol  for  every  shade  of  meaning, 
to  lessen  the  amount  of  nice  distinctions,  and  detect  as  it  were  a 
royal  road  to  the  interchange  of  opinion.  Yet,  in  tlius  diminishing 
their  grammatical  forms  and  simplifying  their  rules,  in  this  common 
effort  to  evince  a  striking  contrast  to  the  usual  effects  of  civiliza- 
tion, all  confusion  has  been  prevented  by  the  very  manner  in  which 
the  operation  has  been  conducted ;  for  the  revolution  produced  has 
been  so  gradual  in  its  progress,  that  it  is  only  to  be  discovered  on 
a  comparison  of  the  respective  languages  at  periods  of  a  consider- 
able interval."  ^ 

The  interval  that  Mr.  Price  has  taken  in  the  present  case  is 
certainly  wide  enough.  What  has  to  be  explained  is  the  difference 
that  Ave  find  between  the  written  English  of  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century  and  that,  not  of  the  age  of  Alfred,  or  the  end  of 
the  ninth  century,  but  rather  of  the  end  of  the  eleventh.  The 
question  is,  how  we  are  to  account  for  a  great  change  which  would 
appear  to  have  taken  place  in  the  language,  as  employed  for  liter- 
ary purposes,  not  in  three  centuries,  but  in  one  century,  or  even 
in  half  a  century.  The  English  of  Alfred  continues  to  be  in  all 
respects  the  English  of  Alfric,  wdio  lived  and  wrote  more  than  a 
century  later.  The  National  Chronicle,  still  written  substantially 
in  the  old  language,  comes  down  even  to  the  year  1154.  It  is 
probable  that  we  have  here  the  continued  employment,  for  the  sake 
of  uniformity,  of  an  idiom  which  liad  now  become  antique,  or  what 
is  called  dead  ;  but  there  is  certainly  no  evidence  or  trace  of  any 
other  form  of  the  national  speech  having  ever  been  used  in  writing 
before  the  year  1100  at  the  earliest.  The  overthrow  of  the  native 
government  and  civilization  by  the  Conquest  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  eleventh  century  would  not,  of  course,  extinguish  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  old  Kterary  language  of  the  country  till  after  the  lapse 
1  Preface  to  Warton,  86. 


160  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  about  a  generation.  We  may  fairly,  then,  regard  tlie  change 
in  question  as  having  taken  place,  in  all  probability,  not  in  three 
centuries,  as  Mr.  Price  puts  the  case,  but  within  at  most  the  third 
part  of  that  space.  This  correction,  while  it  biings  the  breaking 
up  of  the  language  into  close  connection  in  point  of  time  Avith  the 
social  revolution,  gives  it  also  much  more  of  a  sudden  and  convul- 
sionary  character  than  it  has  iji  Mr.  Price's  representation.  The 
gradual  and  gentle  flow,  assumed  to  have  extended  over  three  cen- 
turies, turns  out  to  have  been  really  a  rapid  precipitous  descent,  — 
something  almost  of  the  nature  of  a  cataract,  —  effected  possibly 
within  the  sixth  or  eighth  part  of  that  space  of  time. 

It  may  be  that  there  is  a  tendency  in  certain  languages,  or  in 
all  languages,  to  undergo  a  similar  simplification  of  their  grammar 
to  that  which  the  English  underwent  at  this  crisis.  And  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  such  a  tendency  constantly  operating  unchecked  may 
at  last  produce  such  a  change  as  we  have  in  the  present  case,  the 
conversion  of  the  lanjniao-e  from  one  of  a  svnthetic  to  one  of  an 
analvtic  structure.  Tliat  may  have  happened  with  those  other 
langunges  of  the  Low-Germanic  stock  to  which  i\Ir.  Price  refers. 
But  such  was  certainlj^  not  the  case  with  the  English.  We  have 
that  language  distinctly  before  us  for  three  or  four  centuries,  dur- 
ing which  it  is  not  pretended  that  there  is  to  be  detected  a  tract. 
of  the  operation  of  any  stich  tendency.  The  tendency,  therefore, 
either  did  not  exist,  or  must  have  been  rendered  inoperative  by 
some  counteracting  influence.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  to 
suppose,  that  in  our  own  or  in  any  other  language,  the  tendency 
suddenly  developed  itself  or  became  active  at  a  particular  moment, 
that  would  necessarily  imply  the  very  operation  of  a  new  external 
cause  Avhich  Mr.  Price's  theory  denies.  It  is  no  matter  whether 
we  may  or  may  not  be  able  to  point  out  the  cause  ;  that  a  cause 
there  must  have  been  is  unquestionable. 

In  the  case  before  us,  the  cause  is  suthciently  obvious.  The  in- 
tegrity of  the  constitution  or  grannnatical  system  of  the  language 
was  preserved  so  long  as  its  literature  flourished  ;  when  that  ceased 
to  be  read  and  studied  and  produced,  the  grammatical  cultivation 
and  knowledixe  of  the  lanjruao-e  also  ceased.  The  two  things,  in- 
deed,  were  really  one  and  the  same.  The  literature  and  the  liter- 
ary form  of  the  language  could  not  but  live  and  die  together. 
Whatever  killed  the  one  was  sure  also  to  blight  the  other.  And 
what  was  it  that  did  or  could  bring  the  native  literature  of  England 


THE  THIRTEENTH  AND  FOURTEENTH  CENTURIES.     161 

siiddenly  to  an  end  in  tlie  eleventh  or  twelfth  century  except  the 
new  political  and  social  circumstances  in  which  the  country  was 
then  placed  ?  What  other  than  such  a  cause  ever  extingriished  jn 
any  country  the  light  of  its  ancient  literature  ? 

Of  at  least  two  similar  cases  we  have  a  perfect  knowledge.  How 
long  did  the  classical  Latin  continue  to  be  a  living  language  ?  Just 
so  long  as  the  fabric  of  Latin  civilization  in  the  Western  Empire 
continued  to  exist ;  so  long,  and  no  longer.  When  that  was  over- 
thrown, the  literature  which  was  its  product  and  exponent,  its  ex- 
pression and  in  a  manner  its  very  soul,  and  the  highly  artificial  form 
of  language  which  was  the  material  in  which  that  literature  was 
wrought,  were  both  at  once  struck  with  a  mortal  disease  under 
which  they  perished  almost  with  the  generation  that  had  witnessed 
the  consummation  of  the  barbaric  invasion.  Exactly  similar  is  the 
history  of  the  classic  Greek,  only  that  it  continued  to  exist  as  a 
living  language  for  a  thousand  years  after  the  Latin,  the  social  sys- 
tem with  which  it  was  bound  up,  of  "which  it  w^as  part  and  parcel, 
lasting  so  much  longer.  When  that  fell,  with  the  fall  of  the  East- 
ern Empire  in  the  fifteenth  century,  the  language  also  became 
extinct.  The  ancient  Greek  gave  place  to  the  modern  Greek,  or 
what  is  called  the  Romaic.  The  conquest  of  Constantinople  by 
the  Turks  was  to  the  Greek  language  the  same  thing  that  the 
Norman  Conquest  was  to  the  English. 


THE   THIRTEENTH    AND   FOURTEENTH    CENTURIES.  —  ASCEN- 
DENCY OF  THE  SCHOLASTIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

Ever  since  the  appearance  of  Peter  Lombard's  Four  Books  of 
Sentences,  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  a  struggle  for 
ascendency  had  been  going  on  throughout  Europe  between  the 
Scholastic  Theology,  or  new  philosophy,  and  the  grammatical  and 
rhetorical  studies  with  which  men  had  previously  been  chiefly 
occupied.  At  first  the  natural  advantages  of  its  position  told  in 
favor  of  the  established  learning ;  nay  an  impulse  and  a  new  inspi- 
ration were  probably  given  to  poetry  and  the  belles-lettres  for  a  • 
time  by  the  competition  of  logic  and  philosophy,  and  the  general 
intellectual  excitement  thus  produced :  it  was  in  the  latter  part  of 

VOL.  I.  21 


162  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  twelfth  century  tlmt  the  Avriting  of  Latin  verse  was  cultivated 
with  the  greatest  success ;  it  was  at  the  very  end  of  that  century, 
indeed,  that  Geoffrey  de  Vinsauf,  as  we  have  seen,  composed  and 
published  his  poem  on  the  restoration  of  the  legitimate  mode  of 
versification,  under  the  title  of  Nova  Poetria,  or  the  New  Poetry' 
But  from  about  this  date  the  tide  began  to  turn  ;  and  the  first  half 
of  the  thirteenth  century  may  be  described  as  the  era  of  the  de- 
cline and  fall  of  elegant  literature,  and  the  complete  reduction  of 
studious  minds  under  the  dominion  of  the  scholastic  logic  and 
metaphysics. 

In  the  University  of  Paris,  and  it  was  doubtless  the  same  else- 
where, from  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  ancient 
classics  seem  nearly  to  have  ceased  to  be  read  ;  and  all  that  was 
taught  of  rhetoric,  or  even  of  grammar,  consisted  of  a  few  lessons 
from  Priscian.  The  habit  of  speaking  Latin  correctly  and  ele- 
gantly, which  had  been  so  common  an  accomplishment  of  the 
scholars  of  the  last  age,  was  now  generally  lost :  even  at  the  uni- 
versities, the  classic  tongue  was  corrupted  into  a  base  jargon,  in 
which  frequently  all  grammar  and  syntax  were  disregarded.  This 
universal  revolt  from  the  study  of  words  and  of  aesthetics  to  that 
of  thoughts  and  of  things  is  the  most  remarkable  event  in  the 
intellectual  history  of  the  species.  L^ndoubtedly  all  its  results 
were  not  evil.  On  the  whole,  it  was  most  probably  the  salvation 
even  of  that  learning  and  elegant  literature  which  it  seemed  for  a 
time  to  have  overwhelmed.  The  excitement  of  its  very  novelty 
awakened  the  minds  of  men.  Never  was  there  such  a  ferment  of 
intellectual  activity  as  now  sprung  up  in  Euroj^e.  The  enthusiasm 
of  the  (^rnsades  seemed  to  have  been  succeeded  by  an  enthiisiasm 
of  study,  which  ecpially  impelled  its  successive  inundations  of 
deA'otees.  In  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  there  were 
thirty  thousand  students  at  the  University  of  Oxford  ;  and  that  of 
Paris  could  probably  boast  of  the  attendance  of  a  still  vaster  mul- 
titude. This  was  something  almost  like  a  universal  diffusion  of 
education  and  knowledge.  The  brief  revival  of  elegant  literature 
in  the  twelfth  centmy  Avas  a  premature  s]iring,  which  could  not 
last.  The  preliminary  pi'ocesses  of  vegetation  were  not  sufficiently 
advanced  to  sustain  any  general  or  enduring  efflorescenc(! ;  nor 
was  the  state  of  the  world  such  as  to  call  for  or  admit  of  any  exten- 
sive spread  of  tlu-  kind  of  scholarship  then  cultivated.  The  proba- 
bility is,  that,  even  if  nothing  else  had  taken  its  place,  it  would 


THE  THIRTEENTH  AND  FOURTEENTH  CENTURIES.     163 

have  gradually  become  feebler  in  character,  as  well  as  confined 
within  a  narrower  circle  of  cultivators,  till  it  had  altogether  evapo- 
rated and  disappeared.  The  excitement  of  the  new  learning,  tur- 
bulent and  in  some  respects  debasing  as  it  was,  saved  Western 
Europe  from  the  complete  extinction  of  the  light  of  scholarship 
and  philosophy  which  would  in  that  case  have  ensued,  and  kept 
alive  the  spirit  of  intellectual  culture,  though  in  the  meanwhile 
imprisoned  and  limited  in  its  vision,  for  a  happier  future  time  Avhen 
it  should  have  ampler  scope  and  full  freedom  of  range. 

Almost  the  only  studies  now  cultivated  by  the  common  herd  of 
students  were  the  Aristotelian  logic  and  metaphysics.  Yet  it  was 
not  till  after  a  struggle  of  some  length  that  the  supremacy  of  Aris- 
totle was  established  in  the  schools.  The  most  ancient  statutes 
of  the  University  of  Paris  that  have  been  preserved,  those  issued 
by  the  pope's  legate,  Robert  de  Courgon,  in  1215,  prohibited  the 
reading  either  of  the  metaphysical  or  the  physical  works  of  that 
philosopher,  or  of  any  abridgment  of  them.  This,  however,  it  has 
been  remai'ked,  was  a  mitigation  of  the  treatment  these  books  had 
met  with  a  few  3'ears  before,  when  all  the  copies  of  them  that 
could  be  found  were  ordered  to  be  thrown  into  the  fire.^  Still 
more  lenient  was  a  decree  of  Pope  Gregory  IX.  in  1231,  which 
only  ordered  the  reading  of  them  to  be  suspended  until  they  should 
have  undergone  correction.  Certain  heretical  notions  in  religion, 
promulgated  or  suspected  to  have  been  entertained  by  some  of  the 
most  zealous  of  the  early  Aristotelians,  had  awakened  the  appre- 
hensions of  the  Church ;  but  the  general  orthodoxy  of  their  suc- 
cessors quieted  these  fears  ;  and  in  course  of  time  the  authority  of 
the  Stagirite  was  universally  recognized  both  in  theology  and  in  the 
profane  sciences. 

Some  of  the  most  distinoruished  of  the  scholastic  doctors  of  this 
period  were  natives  of  Britain.  Such,  in  particular,  were  Alexan- 
der de  Hales,  styled  the  Irrefragable,  an  English  Franciscan,  who 
died  at  Paris  m  1245,  and  who  is  famous  as  the  master  of  St. 
Bonaventura,  and  the  first  of  the  long  list  of  commentators  on  the 
Four  Books  of  the  Sentences ;  the  Subtle  Doctor,  John  Duns 
Scotus,  also  a  Franciscan  and  the  chief  glory  of  that  order,  who, 
after  teaching  with  unprecedented  popularity  and  applause  at 
Oxford  and  Paris,  died  at  Cologne  in  1308,  at  the  early  age  of 
forty-three,  leaving  a  mass  of  writings,  the  very  quantity  of  which 
1  Crevier,  Histoire  de  I'Univ.  de  Paris  i.  318 


164  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

would  be  sufficiently  wonderful,  even  if  they  were  not  marked  by 
a  vigor  and  penetration  of  thought  which,  down  to  our  o\vn  day, 
has  excited  the  admiration  of  all  who  have  examined  them  ;  and 
William  Occam,  the  Invincible,  another  Franciscan,  the  pupil  of 
Scotus,  but  afterwards  his  opponent  on  the  great  philosophical 
({uestion  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  Universals  or  General  l^erms, 
which  so  long  divided,  and  still  divides,  logicians.  Occam,  wlio 
died  at  Munich  in  1347,  was  the  restorer,  and  perhaps  the  most 
able  defender  that  the  Middle  Ages  produced,  of  the  doctrine  of 
Nominalism,  or  the  opinion  that  general  notions  are  merely  names, 
and  not  real  existences,  as  was  contended  by  the  Realists.  The 
side  taken  by  Occam  was  that  of  the  minority  in  his  own  day,  and 
for  many  ages  after,  and  his  views  accordingly  were  generally  re- 
garded as  heterodox  in  the  schools  ;  but  his  high  merits  have  been 
recognized  in  modern  times,  when  perhaps  the  greater  number  of 
speculators  have  come  over  to  his  way  of  thinking. 


MATHEMATICAL  AND    OTHER   STUDIES. 

In  the  mathematical  and  physical  sciences,  Roger  Bacon  is  the 
great  name  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  indeed  the  greatest  that 
either  his  country  or  Europe  can  produce  for  some  centuries  after 
this  time.  He  was  born  at  Ilchester  about  the  year  1214,  and  died 
in  1292.  His  writings  that  are  still  preserved,  of  which  the  prin- 
cipal is  that  entitled  his  Opus  Majus  (or  Greater  Work),  show  that 
the  range  of  his  investigations  included  theoloo;v,  grammar,  the 
ancient  languages,  geometry,  astronomy,  chronology,  geography, 
music,  optics,  mechanics,  chemistry,  and  most  of  the  other  branches 
of  experimental  philosophy.  In  all  these  sciences  he  had  mastered 
whatever  was  then  known ;  and  his  knowledge,  though  necessarily 
mixed  with  much  error,  extended  in  various  dii*ections  considerably 
farther  than,  but  for  the  evidence  of  his  writings,  we  should  have 
been  warranted  in  believing  that  scientific  researches  had  been  car- 
ried  in  that  age.  In  optics,  for  instance,  he  not  only  understood 
the  general  laws  of  reflected  and  refracted  light,  and  had  at  least 
conceived  such  an  instrument  as  a  telescope,  but  he  makes  some 
advances  towards  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  tlie  rainbow. 


ROGER  BACON.  — ROBERT  GROSSETESTE.      165 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  what  have  been  sometimes  called  his 
inventions  and  discoveries  in  mechanics  and  in  chemistry  were  for 
the  greater  part  more  than  notions  he  had  formed  of  the  possibihty 
of  accomphshing  certain  results  ;  but,  even  regarded  as  mere  spec- 
ulations or  conjectures,  many  of  his  statements  of  what  might  be 
done  show  that  he  was  familiar  with  mechanical  principles,  and 
possessed  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  powers  of  natural 
agents.  He  appears  to  have  been  acquainted  with  the  effects  and 
composition  of  gunpowder,  which  indeed  there  is  other  evidence 
for  believing  to  have  been  then  known  in  Europe.  Bacon's  notions 
on  the  right  method  of  philosophizing  are  remarkably  enhghtened 
for  the  times  in  which  he  lived ;  and  his  general  views  upon  most 
subjects  evince  a  penetration  and  liberality  much  beyond  the  spirit 
of  his  age.  With  all  his  sagacity  and  freedom  from  prejudice, 
indeed,  he  was  a  believer  both  in  astrology  and  alchemy ;  but,  as  it 
has  been  observed,  these  delusions  did  not  then  stand  in  the  same 
predicament  as  now:  they  were  "irrational  only  because  unproved, 
and  neither  impossible  nor  luiworthy  of  the  mvestigation  of  a  phi- 
losopher, in  the  absence  of  preceding  experiments."^ 

Another  eminent  English  cultivator  of  mathematical  science  in 
that  age  was  the  celebrated  Robert  Grosseteste,  or  Grostete,  or 
Grosthead,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  the  friend  and  patron  of  Bacon. 
Grostete,  who  died  m  1253,  and  of  whom  we  shall  have  more  to 
say  presently,  is  the  author  of  a  treatise  on  the  sphere,  which  has 
been  printed.  A  third  name  that  deserves  to  be  mentioned  along 
with  these  is  that  of  Sir  Michael  Scott,  famous  in  popular  tradition 
as  a  practitioner  of  the  occult  sciences,  but  whom  his  writings,  of 
which  several  are  extant,  and  have  been  printed,  prove  to  have 
been  possessed  of  acquirements,  both  in  science  and  literature,  of 
which  few  in  those  times  could  boast.  He  is  commonly  assumed 
to  have  been  proprietor  of  the  estate  of  Balwearie,  in  Fife,  and  to 
have  survived  till  near  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  ;  but  all 
that  is  certain  is,  that  he  was  a  native  of  Scotland,  and  one  of  the 

^  Penny  Cyclopaedia,  iii.  243.  Bacon's  principal  work,  the  Opus  Majus,  was  pub- 
lished by  Dr.  Jebb,  in  a  folio  volume,  at  London  in  1733  ;  and  several  of  his  other 
treatises  had  been  previously  printed  at  Francfort,  Paris,  and  elsewhere.  His  Opus 
Minus  has  also  now  been  edited  by  Professor  Brewer,  of  King's  College,  London, 
and  forms  one  of  the  volumes  of  the  series  entitled  Rerum  Britannicarum  Medii 
^vi  Scriptores,  or  Cliroiiicles  and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during 
the  Middle  Ages  ;  published  by  the  authority  of  Her  Majesty's  Treasury,  under  tlie 
lirection  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  8vo.,  London,  1857,  &c 


166  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

most  distinguished  of  the  learned  persons  wlio  flourished  at  the 
court  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  who  died  in  1250.^  Like 
Roger  Bacon,  Scott  was  addicted  to  the  study  of  alchemy  and 
astrology ;  but  these  were  in  his  eyes  also  parts  of  natural  philoso- 
phy. Among  other  works,  a  History  of  Animals  is  ascribed  to 
him;  and  he  is  said  to  have  translated  several  of  the  works  of 
Aristotle  fi'om  the  Greek  into  Latin,  at  the  command  of  the  Em- 
peror Frederick.  He  is  reputed  to  have  been  eminently  skilled 
both  in  astronomy  and  medicine  ;  and  a  contemporary,  John  Bacon, 
himself  known  by  the  title  of  Prince  of  the  Averroists,  or  follow- 
ers of  the  Arabian  doctor  Averroes,  celebrates  him  as  a  great 
theologian.^ 

Tliese  instances,  however,  were  rare  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule.  Metaphysics  and  logic,  together  with  divinity,  —  which  was 
converted  into  little  else  than  a  subject  of  metaphysical  and  logical 
contention,  —  so  occvipied  the  crowd  of  intellectual  inquirers,  that, 
except  the  professional  branches  of  law  and  medicine,  scarcely  any 
other  studies  were  generally  attended  to.  Roger  Bacon  himself 
tells  us  that  he  knew  of  only  two  good  mathematicians  amono-  his 
contemporaries,  —  one  John  of  Leyden,  who  had  been  a  pupil  of 
his  own,  and  another  whom  he  does  not  name,  but  who  is  supposed' 
to  have  been  John  Peckham,  a  Franciscan  fi-iar,  who  afterwards 
became  archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Few  students  of  the  science, 
he  says,  proceeded  farther  than  the  fifth  proposition  of  the  first 
book  of  Euclid,  —  the  well-known  asses'  bridge.  The  study  of 
geometry  was  still  confounded  in  the  popular  understanding  with 
the  study  of  magic,  —  a  proof  that  it  was  a  very  rare  pui'suit.  In 
arithmetic,  although  the  Arabic  numerals  had  found  their  way  to 
Christian  Europe  before  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  they 
do  not  appear  to  have  come  into  general  use  till  a  considerably  later 
date.  Astronomy,  however,  was  sufficiently  cultivated  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  to  enable  some  of  the  members  to  predict  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun  M^hich  happened  on  the  31st  of  January,  1310.^ 
This  science  was  indebted  for  part  of  the  attention  it  received  to 
the  behef  that  was  universally  entertained  in  the  influence  of  the 
stars  over  human  aflairs.  And,  as  astrology  led  to  the  cultivation 
?nd  improi  ement  of  astronomy,  so  the  other  imaginary  science  of 

^  See  article  in  Penny  Cyclopnedia,  xxi.  101. 
^  See  an  article  in  Michael  Scott  in  Bayle. 
8  Crevier,  ii.  22t. 


ALCHEMISTS.  167 

alchemy  undoubtedly  aided  the  progress  of  chemistry  and  medi* 
cine.  Besides  Roger  Bacon  and  Michael  Scott  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  England  contributes  the  names  of  John  Daustein,  of 
Richard,  and  of  Cremer,  abbot  of  Westminster,  the  disciple  and 
friend  of  the  famous  Raymond  Lully,  to  the  list  of  the  writers  on 
alcheni}^  in  the  fourteenth.  Lully  himself  visited  England  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  I.,  on  the  invitation  of  the  king ;  and  he  affirms 
in  one  of  his  works,  that,  in  the  secret  chamber  of  St.  Katharine 
in  the  Tower  of  London,  he  performed  in  the  royal  presence  the 
experiment  of  transmuting  some  crystal  into  a  mass  of  diamond, 
or  adamant  as  he  calls  it,  of  which  Edward,  he  says,  caused  some 
little  pillars  to  be  made  for  the  tabernacle  of  God.  It  was  popu- 
larly believed,  indeed,  at  the  time,  that  the  English  king  had  been 
furnished  by  Lully  with  a  great  quantity  of  gold  for  defraying  the 
expense  of  an  expedition  he  intended  to  make  to  the  Holy  Land. 
Edward  III.  was  not  less  credulous  on  the  subject  than  his  grand- 
father, as  appears  by  an  order  which  he  issued  in  1329,  in  the  fol- 
lowing terms  :  —  "  Know  all  men,  that  we  have  been  assured  that 
John  of  Rous  and  Master  William  of  Dalby  know  how  to  make 
silver  by  the  art  of  alchemy  ;  that  they  have  made  it  in  former 
times,  and  still  continue  to  make  it ;  and,  considering  that  these 
men,  by  their  art,  and  by  making  the  precious  metal,  may  be 
profitable  to  us  and  to  our  kingdom,  we  have  commanded  our 
well-beloved  Thomas  Gary  to  apprehend  the  aforesaid  John  and 
William,  wherever  they  can  be  found,  within  liberties  or  without, 
and  bring  them  to  us,  together  with  all  the  instruments  of  their 
art,  under  safe  and  sure  custody."  The  earliest  English  writer  on 
medicine,  whose  works  have  been  printed,  is  Gilbert  English  (or 
Anglicus),  who  flovirished  in  the  thirteenth  century  ;  and  he  was 
followed  in  the  next  century  by  John  de  Gaddesden.  The  prac- 
tice of  medicine  had  now  been  taken  in  a  great  measure  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  clergy ;  but  the  art  was  still  in  the  greater  part  a 
mixture  of  superstition  and  quackery,  although  the  knowledge  of 
some  useful  remedies,  and  perhaps  also  of  a  few  principles,  had 
^een  obtained  from  the  writings  of  the  Arabic  physicians  (many 
of  which  had  been  translated  into  Latin)  and  from  the  instructions 
delivered  in  the  schools  of  Spain  and  Italy.  The  distinction  be- 
tween the  physician  and  the  apothecary  was  already  well  under- 
stood. Surgery  also  began  to  be  followed  fiS  a  separate  branch : 
some  works  are  still  extant,  partly  printed,  partly  in  manuscript, 


168  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

by  John  Ardern,  or  Arden,  an  eminent  English  surgeon,  who 
practised  at  Newark  in  the  fourteenth  century.  A  lively  pictiire 
of  the  state  of  the  surgical  art  at  this  period  is  given  by  a  French 
writer,  Guy  de  Cauliac,  in  a  system  of  surgery  which  he  published 
in  1363.  "  The  practitioners  in  surgery,"  he  says,  "  are  divided 
into  five  sects.  The  first  follow  Roger  and  Roland,  and  the  four 
masters,  and  apply  poultices  to  all  wounds  and  abscesses  ;  the 
second  follow  Brunus  and  Theodoric,  and  in  the  same  cases  use 
wine  only;  the  third  follow  Saliceto  and  Lanfranc,  and  treat 
woimds  with  ointments  and  soft  plasters ;  the  fourth  are  chiefly 
Germans,  who  attend  the  aimies,  and  promiscuously  use  charms, 
potions,  oil,  and  wool ;  the  fifth  are  old  women  and  ignorant  people, 
who  have  recourse  to  the  saints  in  all  cases." 

Yet  the  true  method  of  philosophizing,  by  experiment  and  the 
collection  of  facts,  was  almost  as  distinctly  and  emphatically  laid 
down  in  this  age  by  Roger  Bacon,  as  it  was  more  than  three  cen- 
turies afterwards  by  his  illustriou.s  namesake.  Much  knowledge, 
too,  must  necessarily  have  been  accumulated  in  various  depart- 
ments by  the  actual  application  of  this  method.  Some  of  the 
greatest  of  the  modern  chemists  have  bestowed  the  highest  praise 
on  the  manner  in  W'hich  the  experiments  of  the  alchemists,  or 
hermetic  philosophers,  as  they  called  themselves,  on  metals  and 
other  natural  substances  appear  to  have  been  conducted.  In  an- 
other field  —  namely,  in  that  of  geography  and  the  institutions, 
customs,  and  general  state  of  distant  countries  —  a  great  deal  of 
new  information  must  have  been  acquired  fi'om  the  accovmts  that 
were  now  published  by  various  travellers,  especially  by  Marco 
Polo,  who  penetrated  as  far  as  to  Tartary  and  China,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  by  our  countryman.  Sir  John 
Mandevil,  who  also  traversed  a  great  part  of  the  East  about  a  hun- 
dred years  later.  Roger  Bacon  has  inserted  a  very  curious  epitome 
of  the  geographical  knowledge  of  his  time  in  his  Opus  Majus. 


UNIVERSITIES   AND   COLLEGES. 

AnouT  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  both  in  England 
and  elsewhere,  the  universities  began  to  assimie  a  new  form,  hy 


UNIVERSl  riii.b   AND   COLLEGES.  169 

the  erection  of  colleges  for  the  residence  of  their  members  as 
separate  communities.  The  zeal  for  learning  that  was  displayed 
in  these  endowments  is  the  most  honorable  characteristic  of  the 
age.  Before  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  following  col- 
leges were  founded  at  Oxford  :  —  University  Hall,  by  William, 
archdeacon  of  Durham,  who  died  in  1249  ;  Baliol  College,  by 
John  Baliol,  father  of  King  John  of  Scotland,  about  1263  ;  Mer- 
ton  College,  by  Walter  Merton,  bishop  of  Rochester,  in  1268  ; 
Exeter  College,  by  Walter  Stapleton,  bishop  of  Exeter,  about 
1315  ;  Oriel  College,  originally  called  the  Hall  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  of  Oxford,  by  Edward  II.  and  his  almoner,  Adam  de 
Brom,  about  1324  ;  Queen's  College,  by  Robert  Eglesfield,  chap- 
lain to  Queen  Philippa,  in  1340  ;  and  New  College,  in  1379,  by 
the  celebrated  William  of  Wykeham,  bishop  of  Winchester,  the 
munificent  founder  also  of  Winchester  School  or  College.  In 
the  University  of  Cambridge  the  foundations  were,  Peter  House, 
by  Hugh  Balsham,  sub-prior  and  afterwards  bishop  of  Ely,  about 
1256  ;  Michael  College  (afterwards  incorporated  with  Trinity  Col- 
lege), by  Herby  de  Stanton,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  to  Ed- 
ward II.,  about  1324  ;  University  Hall  (soon  afterwards  burnt 
down),  by  Richard  Badew,  Chancellor  of  the  University,  in  1326  ;. 
King's  Hall  (afterwards  united  to  Trinity  College),  by  Edward  , 
III.  ;  Clare  Hall,  a  restoration  of  University  Hall,  by  Elizabetlv 
de  Clare,  Countess  of  Ulster,  about  1347  ;  Pembroke  Hall,  or  the- 
Hall  of  Valence  and  Mary,  in  the  same  year,  by  Mary  de  St.  Paul, 
widow  of  Aymer  de  Valence,  Earl  of  Pembroke  ;  Trinity  Hall, 
in  1350,  by  William  Bateman,  bishop  of  Norwich  ;  Gonvil  Hall, 
about  the  same  time,  by  Edmond  Gonvil,  parson  of  Terrington 
and  Rushworth,  in  Norfolk ;  and  Corpus  Christi,  or  Ben'et  (that 
is,  Benedict)  College,  about  1351,  by  the  United  Guilds  of  Corpus 
Christi  and  St.  Mary,  in  the  town  of  Cambridge.  The  erection 
of  these  colleges,  besides  the  accommodations  which  they  afforded 
in  various  ways  both  to  teachers  and  students,  gave  a  permanent 
establishment  to  the  universities,  which  they  scarcely  before  pos- 
sessed. The  original  condition  of  these  celebrated  seats  of  learn- 
ing, in  regard  to  all  the  conveniences  of  teaching,  appears  to  have 
been  humble  in  the  extreme.  Great  disorders  and  scandals  are 
also  said  to  have  arisen,  before  the  sevei^al  societies  were  thus  as- 
sembled each  within  its  own  walls,  from  the  intermixture  of  the 
students  with  the  townspeople,  and  their  exemption  from  all  disci- 

VOL.  I.  22 


170  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

pline.  But,  when  the  members  of  the  University  were  counted 
by  tens  of  thousands,  disciphne,  even  in  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances, must  have  been  nearly  out  of  the  question.  The  difficulty 
would  not  be  lessened  by  the  general  character  of  the  persons  com- 
posino-  the  learned  mob,  if  we  may  take  it  from  the  quaint  historian 
of  the  University  of  Oxford.  Many  of  them,  Anthony  a  Wood 
affirms,  were  mere  "  varlets  who  pretended  to  be  scholars  ;  "  he 
does  not  scruple  to  charge  them  with  being  habitually  guilty  of 
thieving  and  other  enormities  ;  and  he  adds,  "  They  lived  under 
no  discipline,  neither  had  any  tutors,  but  only  for  fashion  sake 
w^ould  sometimes  thrust  themselves  into  the  schools  at  ordinary 
lectures,  and,  when  they  went  to  perform  any  mischiefs,  then 
would  they  be  accounted  scholars,  that  so  they  might  free  them- 
selves from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  burghers."  To  repress  the 
evils  of  this  state  of  things,  the  old  statutes  of  the  University  of 
Paris,  in  1215,  had  ordained  that  no  one  should  be  reputed  a 
scholar  who  had  not  a  certain  master.  Another  of  these  ancient 
regulations  may  be  quoted  in  illustration  of  the  simplicity  of  the 
times,  and  of  the  small  measure  of  pomp  and  circumstance  that 
the  heads  of  the  commonwealth  of  learning  could  then  affect.  It 
is  ordered  that  every  master  reading  lectures  in  the  faculty  of  arts 
should  have  his  cloak  or  gown  round,  black,  and  falhng  as  Ioav  as 
the  heels  — "  at  least,"  adds  the  statute,  with  amusing  na'ivetS, 
"  while  it  is  new."  But  this  famous  seminary  long  continued  to 
take  pride  in  its  poverty  as  one  of  its  most  honorable  distinctions. 
There  is  something  very  noble  and  affiicting  in  the  terms  in  which 
the  rector  and  masters  of  the  faculty  of  arts  are  found  petitioning, 
in  1362,  for  a  postponement  of  the  hearing  of  a  cause  in  which 
they  were  parties.  "  We  have  difficulty,"  they  say,  "  in  finding 
the  money  to  pay  the  procurators  and  advocates,  whom  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  employ  —  we  tvhose  profession  it  is  to  possess  no 
wealthy  ^  Yet,  when  funds  were  wanted  for  important  purposes 
in  connection  with  learning  or  science,  they  were  supplied  in  this 
age  wuth  no  stinted  liberality.  We  have  seen  Avith  what  alacrity 
opulent  persons  came  forward  to  build  and  endow  colleges,  as  soon 
as  the  expediency  of  such  foundations  came  to  be  perceived.  In 
almost  all  these  establishments  more  or  less  provision  was  made  for 
the  permanent  maintenance  of  a  body  of  poor  scholars,  in  other 
vords,  for  the  admission  of  even  the  humblest  classes  to  a  share  in 

^  Crevier,  ii.  404. 


LATIN   HISTORICAL   WORKS.  171 

the  benefits  of  that  learned  education  whose  temples  and  priesthood 
were  thus  planted  in  the  land.  It  is  probable,  also,  that  the  same 
kind  of  liberality  was  often  shown  in  other  ways.  Roger  Bacon 
tells  us  himself  that,  in  the  twenty  years  in  which  he  had  been 
engaged  in  his  experiments,  he  had  spent  in  books  and  instruments 
no  less  a  sum  than  two  thousand  French  livres,  an  amount  of  sil- 
ver equal  to  about  six  thousand  pounds  of  our  present  money, 
and  in  effective  value  certainly  to  many  times  that  sura.  He 
must  have  been  indebted  for  these  large  supplies  to  the  gen- 
erosity of  rich  friends  and  patrons. 


LATIN    HISTORICAL    WORKS    OF    THE    THIRTEENTH    AND 
FOURTEENTH   CENTURIES. 

Notwithstanding  the  general  neglect  of  its  elegancies,  and  of 
the  habit  of  speaking  it  correctly  or  grammatically,  the  Latin 
tongue  still  continued  to  be  in  England,  as  elsewhere,  the  common 
language  of  the  learned,  and  that  in  which  books  were  generally 
written  that  were  intended  for  their  perusal.  Among  this  class  of 
works  may  be  included  the  contemporaiy  clironicles,  most  of  which 
were  compiled  in  the  monasteries,  and  the  authors  of  almost  all  of 
which  were  churchmen. 

The  Chronicle  of  Roger  de  Wendover,  hitherto  existing  only  in 
MS.,  and  in  a  single  copy,  has  now  been  published,  in  the  greater 
part,  by  the  Rev.  Henry  O.  Coxe,  for  th'e  English  Historical  Soci- 
ety, under  the  title  of  Rogeri  de  Wendover  Chronica,  sive  Flores 
Historiarum,  5  vols.  8vo.  Lon.  1841-44.  The  portion  omitted  is 
merely  the  First  Book,  wliich  contains  the  space  from  the  creation 
to  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  and  is  abridged  in  the 
Flores  Historiarum  bearing  the  name  of  Matthew  of  Westminster, 
together  with  the  first  446  years  of  Book  Second,  in  which  there 
is  equally  little  that  is  peculiar  or  important.  The  remainder  of 
the  narrative  comes  down  to  the  year  1235  (the  19tli  of  Henry 
III.),  and  is  very  valuable.  An  English  translation  by  Dr.  Giles 
of  so  muoli  of  Roger  de  Wendover's  Chronicle  as  has  been  pub- 
jshed  by  Mr.  Coxe  makes  two  of  the  volumes  of  Bohn's  Anti- 
quarian   Library,   Lon.   1849.     Wendover,   who   was   probably  a 


172  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

native  of  the  place  of  that  name  in  Buckinghamshire,  became  a 
monk  and  precentor  in  the  Benedictine  monastery  of  St.  Albans, 
and  died  prior  of  Belvoir,  in  a  cell  of  that  house,  on  the  6th  of 
May,  1237.  He  has  compiled  the  earlier  portion  of  his  work  from 
Bede,  Marianus  Scotus,  some  of  the  Byzantine  writers,  Malmes- 
bury,  Florence  of  Worcester,  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  and  the 
other  best  and  most  reputable  of  preceding  chroniclers,  and  in  a 
very  workmanlike  manner.  Mr.  Coxe  holds  him  to  be  quite  as 
good  a  writer  as  Matthew  Paris,  whose  more  celebrated  History  is, 
down  to  the  point  where  that  of  Wendover  ends,  copied  from  him 
^vitli  few  alterations,  and  those,  Mr.  Coxe  declares,  mostly  for  the 
worse  even  in  point  of  expression.  Mr.  Coxe  \dndicates  the  claim 
of  Wendover  to  the  authorship  of  the  portion  of  the  Chronicle 
beaiing  his  name  which  has  been  thus  transcribed  by  Paris,  in 
answer  to  some  remarks  by  Mr.  Halliwell  in  the  introduction  to 
his  late  edition  of  Rishancrer's  Chronicle  of  the  Barons'  Wars. 

The  most  celebrated  English  historian  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
however,  is  Matthew  Paris,  who  was  another  monk  of  the  same 
great  monastery  of  St.  Albans,  and  was  also  much  employed  in 
affairs  of  state  during  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  He  died  in  1259 ; 
and  his  principal  work,  entitled  Historia  Major  (the  Greater  His- 
tory), begins  at  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  comes  down  to  that 
year.  Matthew  Paris  is  one  of  the  most  spirited  and  rhetorical  of 
our  old  Latin  historians  ;  and  the  extraordinary  freedom  with  which 
he  expresses  himself,  in  regard  especially  to  the  usurpations  of  the 
court  of  Rome,  forms  a  striking  contrast  to  the  almost  uniform 
tone  of  his  monkish  brethren.  Nor  does  he  show  less  boldness  in 
animadverting  upon  the  vices  and  delinquencies  of  kings  and  of 
the  gi'eat  in  general.  These  qualities  have  in  modern  times  gained 
him  much  admiration  among  writers  of  one  party,  and  much  oblo- 
quy from  those  of  another.  His  work  has  always  been  bitterly 
decried  by  the  Roman  Cathohcs,  who  at  one  time,  indeed,  were 
accustomed  to  maintain  that  much  of  what  appeared  in  the  printed 
copies  of  it  was  the  interpolation  of  its  Protestant  editors.  This 
charge  has  now  been  abandoned ;  but  an  eminent  CathoHc  histo- 
rian of  the  pi'esent  day  has  not  hesitated  to  denounce  the  narrative 
of  the  monk  of  St.  Albans  as  "  a  romance  rather  than  a  history," 
on  the  ground  of  the  great  discrepancy  which  he  asserts  he  has 
found  between  it  and  authentic  records  or  contemporary  writ- 
ers, in  most  instances  when  he  could  confront  the  one  with  the 


LATIN   HISTORICAL   AVORKS.  173 

other."^  The  Historia  Major  of  Matthew  Paris  was  first  printed  at 
London  in  1571,  under  tlie  care  of  Archbishop  Parker ;  and  it  has 
been  repubhshed  at  Zurich  in  1606 ;  at  London,  under  the  care 
of  Dr.  Wilh'am  "Wats,  in  1640  ;  at  Paris,  in  1644 ;  and  at  London 
in  1684.  All  these  editions  are  in  folio.  An  excellent  French 
translation,  by  M.  A.  Huillard-Breholles,  has  lately  been  published 
under  the  superintendence,  or  at  the  cost,  of  the  Due  de  Luynes, 
in  9  vols.  8vo.  Paris,  1840-41,  with  a  few  notes  by  the  translator, 
but  without  the  Introduction  by  the  Duke,  promised  on  the  title- 
page  —  at  least  in  the  only  copy  of  the  work  that  has  fallen  in  our 
way.  An  English  translation,  by  Dr.  Giles,  makes  three  of  the 
volumes  of  Bohn's  Antiquarian  Library.  To  the  edition  published 
by  Dr.  Wats,  and  those  that  have  followed  it,  are  appended  some 
other  historical  pieces  of  the  author ;  and  there  also  exists,  in  MS., 
an  abridgment  of  the  Historia  Major,  drawn  up  by  himself,  and 
generally  referred  to  as  the  Historia  Minor. 

The  History  of  Matthew  Paris  was  continued  by  William 
Rishanger,  another  monk  of  the  same  abbey,  whose  narrative  ap- 
pears to  have  come  down  to  the  year  1322  (the  15th  of  Edward 
IL),  although  no  complete  copy  is  now  known  to  be  in  existence, 
and  only  the  earlier  part,  extending  to  the  death  of  Henry  HI. 
(a.  d.  1272),  has  been  printed.  It  is  at  the  end  of  Wats's  edition 
of  Matthew  Paris.  Rishano-er  is  also  the  author  of  several  other 
historical  tracts,  one  of  the  most  curious  of  which,  his  Chronicle 
of  the  Barons'  Wars  (preserved  in  a  single  MS.,  with  the  title  of 
De  Bellis  Lewes  et  Evesham)  has  been  printed  for  the  Camden 
Society,  under  the  care  of  Mr.  James  Orchard  Halliwell,  4to. 
Lond.  1840.  To  Rishanger's  narrative  Mr.  Halliwell  has  appended 
a  collection  of  miracles  attributed  to  Simon  de  Montfort,  from 
another  MS.  in  the  Cotton  Library. 

What  is  commonly  called  the  Chronicle  of  John  Bromton,  and 
is  printed  among  the  Decem  Scriptores  (pp.  721-1284)  under  the 
titles  of  Chronicon  Johannis  Bromton,  and  Joralanensis  Historia, 
a  Johanne  Brompton,  Abbate  Jorvalensi,  Conscripta,  has  been 
shown  l)y  Selden,  in  his  most  learned  and  curious  preface  to  that 
collection,  not  to  be  either  the  composition  of  Bromton,  or  in  any 
sense  a  Chronicle  of  Jorevale  or  Jerevaux,  of  which  monastery  in 
Yorkshire  Bromton,  Brompton,  or  Bramton,  was  abbot.  The  book 
«  as  merely  procured  for  the  library  of  that  house  while  he  presided 
1  Dr.  Lingard,  Hist,  of  Eng.  iii.  160,  edit,  of  1837. 


174  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

over  it,  and  probably  through  his  means.  It  does  not  appear  froin 
Selden's  account  when  Bromton  hved ;  but  he  has  proved  (p.  xli) 
that  the  Chronicle  must  have  been  written  in  or  after  the  year 
1328,  or  the  second  of  Edward  III.  At  the  commencement  the 
author  intimates  that  it  is  his  design  to  brino;  it  down  to  the  time 
of  Edward  I.,  but  it  terminates  with  the  death  of  Richard  I.  (a.  d. 
1199),  having  set  out  from  the  conversion  of  the  Saxons  by  St. 
Augustine.  It  is  not  therefore,  in  any  part  of  it,  a  contemporary 
history ;  but  the  writer  has  gleaned  from  some  authorities  which 
we  do  not  now  possess,  and  he  gives  many  details  which  have  not 
elsewhere  been  preserved. 

Among  the  other  Latin  chroniclers  of  this  period,  whose  works 
have  been  printed,  the  following  are  the  principal :  —  Thomas 
Wikes,  or  Wycke,  in  Latin  Wiccius,  canon  regular  of  Osney,  near 
Oxford,  wdiose  chronicle,  otherwise  called  the  Chronicle  of  the 
Church  of  Salisbury,  fills  fi-om  p.  21  to  p.  129  of  Gale's  Scriptores 
Quinque,  and,  as  there  printed,  extends  from  the  Conquest  to  the 
year  1304,  although  it  is  afterwards  intimated  (p.  595)  that  the 
last  ten  pages  of  it  are  by  another  hand;  Walter  Hemingford,  or, 
as  Leland  calls  him,  Hemingoburgus,  a  monk  of  Gisborough  in 
Yorkshire,  the  portion  of  whose  work  extending  from  the  Conquest 
to  the  year  1273  (being  the  first  three  Books)  was  printed  by 
Gale  in  the  same  collection  (pp.  453-595),  and  the  remainder, 
comprehending  the  reigns  of  Edward  L,  Edward  II.,  and  the  first 
twenty  years  of  that  of  Edward  III.,  by  Hearne,  in  2  vols.  8vo., 
at  Oxford,  in  1731,  and  the  wjiole  of  which  has  been  edited  by 
Mr.  H.  C.  Hamilton  for  the  Historical  Society,  in  2  vols.  Svo.  Lon. 
1848 ;  Robert  de  Avesbury,  register  of  the  court  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  whose  history  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III., 
Hf^toria  de  Mirabilibus  Gestis  Edwardi  III.,  which  is  esteemed  for 
its  accuracy,  but  comes  down  only  to  a.  d.  1356,  was  published  bv 
Hearne,  in  8vo.,  at  Oxford,  in  1720;  Nicolas  Trivet,  whose  clear 
and  exact  history  of  the  reigns  of  Stephen,  Henry  II.,  Richard  I., 
John,  Henry  HI.,  and  Edward  I.  (or  from  a.  d.  1135  to  1307),  is 
[)rinted  in  both  editions  of  Eather  d'Achery's  Spicilegium  (1671 
and  1723),  and  has  also  been  published  separately  by  Anthony 
Hall,  in  8vo.,  at  Oxford,  in  1719,  and,  as  edited  by  Mr.  T.  Hog 
for  the  Historical  Society,  8vo.,  Lon.  1845  ;  Adam  Murimntli, 
whose  short  chronicle,  extending  fi-om  a.  n.  1303  to  1337,  along 
with  a  continuation  by  an  anonymous  writer  to  1380,  was  ])riiitc(i 


LATIN   HISTORICAL   WORKS.  175 

by  Hall  as  a  second  volume  to  his  Trivet,  in  1721,  and  has  also 
been  edited  for  the  Historical  Society  by  Mr.  Hog,  1846  ;  Henry 
de  Knyghton  (or  Cnitton,  as  he  himself  spells  the  name),  a  canor 
of  Leicester,  the  author  of  a  History  of  English  affairs  from  the 
time  of  King  Edgar  to  the  death  of  Richard  H.,  which  is  printed 
among  the  Decern  Scriptores  (pp.  2297-2742) ;  and  the  two 
ecclesiastical  historians,  Thomas  Stubbs  and  William  Thoi'ne,  the 
Chronicle  of  the  acts  of  the  Archbishops  of  York  to  a.  d.  1373  by 
the  former  of  whom,  and  that  of  the  Abbots  of  St.  Ano-ustine's 
monastery  at  Canterbury  to  1397  by  the  latter,  are  in  the  same 
collection  (pp.  1685-1734,  and  1753-2202).  The  original  Latin 
Polychronicon  of  Ranulph,  or  Ralph,  Higden,  monk  of  St.  Wer- 
burgh's  in  Chester,  which  ends  in  1357,  still  remains,  for  the 
gi'eater  part,  in  MS.,  only  the  portion  of  it  relating  to  the  period 
of  English  history  before  the  Norman  Conquest  having  been  pub- 
lished by  Gale  among  his  Scriptores  Quindecim  (pp.  177-289)  ; 
but  an  English  translation  of  the  whole  by  John  de  Trevisa,  who 
was  vicar  of  Berkeley  in  Gloucestershire  towards  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  was  printed,  in  folio,  at  Westminster,  by  Cax- 
ton  in  1482,  at  the  same  place  by  Wynken  de  Worde  in  1485, 
and  at  Southwark  in  1517,  and  again  in  1527.  Besides  many 
insertions,  Caxton  has  added  a  continuation  of  the  History  down 
to  1460  ;  but  it  appears  that  he  has  also  omitted  several  passages 
which  are  found  in  Tre visa's  MS.  now  in  the  Harleian  collection. 

John  Fordun,  the  earliest  of  the  regular  Scottish  chroniclers,  also 
belongs  to  the  fourteenth  century.  His  History,  entitled  Scoti- 
chronicon,  beginning  with  the  creation,  comes  down  only  to  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  David  I.  (a.  d.  1153),  but  is  continued  by 
Walter  Bower,  abbot  of  Inchcolm,  to  the  death  of  James  I.  (a.  d. 
1437),  the  materials  for  the  space  from  1153  to  1385  having  been 
collected  by  Fordun.  The  portion  of  the  Scotichronicon  actually 
written  by  Fordun,  being  the  first  five  of  the  sixteen  books,  was 
printed  by  Gale  among  his  Scriptores  Quindecim  (pp.  ^63-701)  ; 
and  the  whole  was  published  by  Hearne,  at  Oxford,  in  5  vols.  8vo. 
in  1722,  and  again  by  Walter  Goodall,  at  Edinburgh,  in  2  vols. 
foHo,  in  1759. 

The  most  important  of  the  monastic  chronicles  belonging  to  this 
period,  which  has  been  preserved,  is  that  called  (it  does  not  appear 
for  what  reason)  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost.  It  has  now  been 
printed  for  the  Bannatyne  and  Maitland  Clubs,  under  the  superin- 


176  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE, 

ten  deuce  of  ]Mr.  Joseph  Stevenson,  4to.,  Edinburgh,  1839.  Before 
this  it  existed  only  in  one  or  two  very  incorrect  modern  transcripts, 
and  in  a  single  original  codex  (the  Cotton  MS.  d.  vii.),  where  it 
is  appended,  without  any  break,  to  an  imperfect  copy  of  what  is 
printed  by  Savile  as  Hoveden's  History.  Hoveden  ends  on  the 
reverse  of  what  is  numbered  as  folio  172  of  the  MS.,  having  filled 
from  folio  66  inclusive :  the  continuation,  or  Lanercost  Chronicle, 
ffoes  on  in  one  handwriting  to  the  end  of  the  volume  on  the  reverse 
of  fol.  242.  The  time  which  it  comprehends  is  from  a.  d.  1201  to 
1346  ;  and  ]Mr.  Stevenson  thinks  that  it  was  transcribed  about  the 
latter  date  from  the  contemporary  register  kept,  most  probably,  in 
the  Minorite  monastery  of  Carlisle.  As  printed  it  fills  352  4to. 
pages  ;  and  it  abounds  in  curious  and  valuable  information  relat- 
ing to  the  course  of  events  both  in  England  and  in  Scotland  during 
the  period  over  which  it  extends. 


USE  AND  STUDY  OF  THE  LATIN  AND  GREEK,  THE  HE- 
BREW AND  OTHER  ORIENTAL  TONGUES. 

Latin  was  also,  for  a  great  part  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  the  usual  language  of  the  law,  at  least  in  writing.  There 
mav,  indeed,  be  some  doubt  perhaps  as  to  the  Charter  of  John.  It 
is  usually  given  in  Latin ;  but  there  is  also  a  French  text  first  pub- 
lished in  the  first  edition  of  D'Achery's  Spicilegium  (1653-57), 
xii.  573,  &c.,  which  there  is  some  reason  for  believing  to  be  the 
orimnal.  "  An  attentive  critical  examination  of  the  French  and 
Latin  together,"  says  Mr.  Luders,  "  will  induce  any  person  capable 
of  making  it  to  think  several  chapters  of  the  latter  translated  from 
the  former,  and  not  originally  composed  in  Latin."  ^  Yet  the 
Capitula^  or  articles  on  Avhich  the  Great  Charter  is  founded,  are 
known  to  us  only  in  Latin.  And  all  the  other  charters  of  liberties 
are  in  that  language.  So  is  every  statute  down  to  the  year  1275. 
The  first  that  is  in  French  is  the  Statute  of  Westminster  the  First, 
passed  in  that  year,  the  3d  of  Edward  I.  Throughout  the  remain- 
der of  the  reign  of  Edward  they  are  sometimes  in  Latin,  sometimes 

1  Tracts  on  tlie  Law  and  History  of  England  (1810),  p.  393.  D'Achery's  French 
text  may  also  be  read  in  a  more  common  book,  Johnson's  History  of  Magna  Charta, 
2d  edit.  (1772),  pp.  182-234 


ORIENTAL   LEARNING.  177 

in  French,  but  more  frequently  in  the  former  la.iguage.  The 
French  becomes  more  frequent  in  the  time  of  Edward  II.  and  is 
ahuost  exclusively  used  in  that  of  Edward  III.  and  Richard  II. 
Still  there  are  statutes  in  Latin  in  the  sixth  and  eighth  years  of 
the  last-mentioned  king.  It  is  not  improbable  that,  from  the  acces- 
sion of  Edward  I.,  the  practice  may  have  bee-n  to  draw  up  every 
statute  in  both  languages.  Of  the  law  treatises,  Bracton  (about 
1265)  and  Fleta  (about  1285)  are  in  Latin  ;  Britton  (about  1280) 
and  the  Miroir  des  Justices  (about  1320),  in  French. 

Latin  was  not  only  the  language  in  which  all  the  scholastic  divines 
and  philosophers  wi'ote,  but  was  also  employed  by  all  wa-iters  on 
geometry,  astronomy,  chemistry,  medicine,  and  the  other  branches 
of  mathematical  and  natural  science.  All  the  works  of  Rocrer 
Bacon,  for  example,  are  in  Latin  ;  and  it  is  worth  noting  that, 
although  by  no  means  a  writer  of  classical  purity,  this  distin- 
guished cultivator  of  science  is  still  one  of  the  most  correct  Avritera 
of  his  time.  He  was  indeed  not  a  less  zealous  student  of  literature 
than  of  science,  nor  less  anxious  for  the  improvement  of  the  one 
than  of  the  other :  accustomed  himself  to  read  the  Avorks  of  Aris- 
totle in  the  original  Greek,  he  denounces  as  mischievous  imposi- 
tions the  wretched  Latin  translations  by  which  alone  they  were 
known  to  the  generality  of  his  contemporaries :  he  warmly  recom- 
mends the  study  of  grammar  and  the  ancient  languages  generally ; 
and  deplores  the  little  attention  paid  to  the  Oriental  tongues  in 
particular,  of  which  he  says  there  were  not  in  his  time  more  than 
three  or  four  persons  in  Western  Europe  who  knew  anything.  It 
is  remarkable  that  the  most  strenuous  effort  made  within  the  pres- 
ent period  to  revive  the  study  of  this  last-mentioned  learning  pro- 
ceeded from  another  eminent  cultivator  of  natural  science,  the 
famous  Raymond  Lully,  half  philosopher,  half  quack,  as  it  has 
been  the  fashion  to  regard  him.  It  was  at  his  instigation  that. 
Clement  V.,  in  1311,  with  the  approbation  of  the  Council  of 
Vienne,  published  a  constitution,  ordei'ing  that  professors  of  Greek,  . 
Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  Chaldaic  should  be  established  in  the  univer- 
sities of  Paris,  Oxford,  Bologna,  and  Salamanca.  He  had,  more 
than  twenty  years  before,  urged  the  same  measure  upon  Honorius 
IV.,  and  its  adoption  then  was  only  prevented  by  the  death  of  that 
po})e.  After  all,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  papal  ordinance  was  ever 
carried  into  effect.  There  were,  however,  professors  of  strange,, 
or  foreign,  languages  at  Paris  a  few  years  after  this  time,  as  ap- 

voL.  I.  23 


178  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

pears  from  an  epistle  of  Pope  John  XXII.  to  his  legate  there  in 
1325,  in  which  the  latter  is  enjoined  to  keep  watch  over  tlie  said 
])rofessors,  lest  thev  slionld  introduce  any  dogmas  as  strange  as  the 
hin<rnao;es  thev  tauo-ht.^ 

Many  additional  details  are  collected  by  Warton  in  his  Disserta- 
tion on  the  Introduction  of  Learnino-  into  England.  He  is  inclined 
to  think  that  many  Greek  manuscripts  found  their  way  into  Europe 
from  Constantinople  in  the  time  of  the  Crusades.  "  Robert  Grost- 
head,  bishop  of  Lincoln,"  he  proceeds,  "an  universal  scholar,  and 
no  less  conversant  in  pohte  letters  than  the  most  abstruse  sciences, 
cultivated  and  patronized  the  study  of  the  Greek  language.  This 
illustrious  prelate,  who  is  said  to  have  composed  almost  two  hun- 
dred books,  read  lectures  in  the  school  of  the  Franciscan  friars  at 
Oxford  about  the  year  1230.  He  translated  Dionysius  the  Areo- 
pagite  and  Damascenus  into  Latin.  He  greatly  facilitated  the 
knowledge  of  Greek  by  a  translation  of  Suidas's  Lexicon,  a  book 
in  high  repute  among  the  lower  Greeks,  and  at  that  time  almost  a 
recent  compilation.  He  promoted  John  of  Basingstoke  to  the 
archdeaconry  of  Leicester,  chiefly  because  he  was  a  Greek  scholar, 
and  possessed  many  Greek  manuscripts,  Avhich  he  is  said  to  have 
brought  from  Athens  into  England.  He  entertained,  as  a  domestic 
in  his  palace,  Nicholas,  chaplain  of  the  abbot  of  St.  Albans,  sur- 
named  Grcecus,  from  his  ujicommon  proficiency  in  Greek ;  and  by 
his  assistance  he  translated  from  Greek  into  Latin  the  testaments 
of  the  twelve  patriarchs.  Grosthead  had  almost  incurred  the  cen- 
sure of  excommimication  for  preferring  a  complaint  to  the  pope 
that  most  of  the  opulent  benefices  in  England  Avere  occupied  by 
Italians.  But  the  practice,  although  notoriously  founded  on  the 
monopolizing  and  arbitrary  spirit  of  papal  imposition,  and  a  mani- 
fest act  of  injustice  to  the  English  clergy,  probably  contributed  to 
introduce  many  learned  foreigners  into  England,  and  to  propagate 
philological  literature."  ^  "  Bishop  Grosthead,"  Warton  adds,  "  is 
also  said  to  have  been  profoundly  skilled  in  the  Hebrew  language. 
William  the  Conqueror  permitted  great  numbers  of  Jews  to  come 
over  from  Rouen,  and  to  settle  in  England,  about  the  year  1087» 
Their  multitude  soon  inci*eased,  and  they  sjn-ead  themselves  hi 
vast  bodies  throiaghout  most  of  the  cities  and  capital  towns  in  Eng- 
land, where  they  built  synagogues.     There  Averc  fifteen  hundred 

1  Crevier,  Hist,  de  I'Univ.  de  Taris,  ii.  112,  227. 

2  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  i.  cxxxv. 


GREEK   AND   HEBREW.  179 

at  York  about  the  year  1189.  At  Bury  in  Suffolk  is  a  very  com- 
plete remain  of  a  Jewish  synagogue  of  stone,  in  the  Norman  style, 
large  and  magnificent.  Hence  it  was  that  many  of  the  learned 
English  ecclesiastics  of  those  times  became  acquainted  with  their 
books  and  language.  In  the  reign  of  William  Rufus,  at  Oxford 
the  Jews  were  remarkably  numerous,  and  had  acquired  a  consider- 
able property ;  and  some  of  their  rabbis  were  permitted  to  open  a 
school  in  the  university,  where  they  instructed  not  only  their  own 
people,  but  many  Christian  students,  in  the  Hebrew  literature, 
about  the  year  1054.  Within  two  hundred  years  after  their  ad- 
mission or  establishment  by  the  Conqueror,  they  were  banished 
the  kingdom.  This  circumstance  was  highly  favorable  to  the  cir- 
culation of  their  learning  in  England.  The  suddenness  of  their 
dismission  obliged  them,  for  present  subsistence,  and  other  reasons, 
to  sell  their  movable  goods  of  all  kinds,  among  which  were  large 
quantities  of  Rabbinical  books.  The  monks  in  various  parts  availed 
themselves  of  the  distribution  of  these  treasures.  At  Huntingdon 
and  Stamford  there  was'  a  prodigious  sale  of  their  effects,  contain- 
ing immense  stores  of  Hebi'ew  manuscripts,  which  were  imme- 
diately purchased  by  Gregory  of  Huntingdon,  prior  of  the  abbey 
of  Ramsey.  Gregory  speedily  became  an  adept  in  the  Hebrew, 
by  means  of  these  valuable  acquisitions,  which  he  bequeathed  to 
his  monastery  about  the  year  1250.  Other  members  of  the  same 
convent,  in  consequence  of  these  advantages,  are  said  to  have  been 
equal  proficients  in  the  same  language,  soon  after  the  death  of 
Prior  Gregory  ;  among  whom  were  Robert  Dodford,  librarian  of 
Ramsey,  and  Laurence  Holbeck,  who  compiled  a  HebrcAv  lexicon. 
At  Oxford,  great  multitudes  of  their  books  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Roger  Bacon,  or  were  bought  by  his  brethren,  the  Franciscan 
friars  of  that  university."  ^  The  general  expulsion  of  the  Jews 
from  England  did  not  take  place  till  the  year  1290,  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  I. ;  but  they  had  been  repeatedly  subjected  to  sudden 
violence,  both  from  the  populace  and  ft-om  the  government,  before 
that  grand  catastrophe. 

1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  i.  cxxxvi. 


180      ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 


LAST  AGE  OF  THE  FRENCH  LANGUAGE  IN  ENGLAND. 

The  Frencli  language,  liowever,  was  still  in  common  use  among 
us  down  to  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  It  is  well 
remarked  by  Pinkerton  that  we  are  to  date  the  cessation  of  the 
general  use  of  French  in  this  country  from  the  breaking  out  of 
"  the  inveterate  enmity  "  between  the  two  nations  in  the  reign  of 
that  king.i  Higden,  as  we  have  seen,  writing  before  this  change 
had  taken  place,  tells  us  that  French  was  still  in  his  day  the  lan- 
guage which  the  children  of  gentlemen  were  taught  to  speak  from 
their  cradle,  and  the  only  language  that  was  allowed  to  be  used  bv 
boys  at  school ;  the  effect  of  which  was,  that  even  the  country- 
people  generally  understood  it  and  affected  its  use.  The  tone, 
how^ever,  in  which  this  is  stated  by  Higden  indicates  that  the  pub- 
lic feeling  had  already  begun  to  set  in  against  these  customs,  and 
that,  if  they  still  kept  their  ground  from  use  and  wont,  they  had 
lost  their  hold  upon  any  firmer  or  surer  stay.  Accordingly,  about 
a  quarter  of  a  century  or  thirty  years  later,  his  translator  Trevisa 
finds  it  necessary  to  subjoin  the  following  explanation  or  correc- 
tion: —  "This  maner  w^as  myche  yused  tofore  the  first  moreyn 
[before  the  first  murrain  or  plague,  which  happened  in  1349],  and 
is  siththe  som  dele  [somewhat]  ychaungide.  For  John  Comwaile, 
a  maister  of  gramar,  chaungide  the  lore  [learning]  in  gramar  scole 
and  construction  of  [from]  Frensch  into  Englisch,  and  Richard 
Pencrichc  lerned  that  maner  teching  of  him,  and  other  men  of 
Pencriche.  So  that  now,  the  yere  of  owre  Lord  a  thousand  thre 
hundred  foure  score  and  fyve,  of  the  secunde  King  Rychard  after 
the  Conquest  nyne,  in  alle  the  gramer  scoles  of  England  children 
leveth  Frensch,  and  construeth  and  lerneth  an  [in]  Englisch,  and 
haveth  thereby  avauntage  in  oon  [one]  side  and  desavauntage  in 
another.  Her  [their]  avauntage  is,  that  tliei  lerneth  her  [their] 
gramer  in  lasse  tyme  than  children  were  wont  to  do ;  desavaun- 
tage is,  that  now  children  of  gramer  scole  kunneth  [know]  no 
more  Frensch  than  can  her  lifte  [knows  their  left]  heele  ;  and  that 
is  harm  for  hem    [them],  and    [if]   thei  schul   passe   the  see  and 

1  Essay  on  the  Origin  of  Scotish  Poetry,  prefixed  to  Ancient  Scotish  Poems, 
1786,  vol.  i.  p.  Ixiii.  Some  curious  remarks  )ipon  the  peculiar  political  position  in 
which  I'>ngland  was  held  to  stand  in  relation  to  France  in  the  first  reigns  after  th« 
?on(juest  may  be  read  in  Gale's  Preface  to  his  Scriptorcs  Quindecim. 


THE   FRENCH   LANGUAGE.  181 

travaile  iii  strange  londes,  and  in  many  other  places  also.  Alsc 
gentilmen  haveth  now  mych  ylefte  for  to  teche  her  [their]  children 
Frensch."  ^ 

A  few  years  before  this,  in  1362  (the  36th  of  Edward  III.), 
was  passed  the  statute  ordaming  that  all  pleas  pleaded  in  the  king's 
courts  should  be  pleaded  in  the  English  language,  and  entered  and 
enrolled  in  Latin ;  the  pleadings,  or  oral  arguments,  till  now  hav- 
ing been  in  French,  and  the  enrolments  of  the  judgments  some- 
times m  French,  sometimes  m  Latin.  The  reasons  assigned  for 
this  change  in  the  preamble  of  the  act  are,  "  because  it  is  often 
showed  to  the  king  by  the  prelates,  dukes,  earls,  barons,  and  all 
the  commonalty,  of  the  great  mischiefs  which  have  happened  to 
divers  of  the  realm,  because  the  laws,  customs,  and  statutes  of  this 
realm  be  not  commonly  holden  and  kept  m  the  same  realm,  for 
that  they  be  pleaded,  shewed,  and  judged  in  the  French  tong-ue, 
which  is  much  unknown  in  the  said  realm,  so  that  the  people  which 
do  implead,  or  be  impleaded,  in  the  king's  court,  and  in  the  courts 
of  other,  have  no  knowledge  nor  understanding  of  that  which  is 
said  for  them  or  against  them  by  their  sergeants  and  other  plead- 
ers ;  and  that  reasonably  the  said  laws  and  customs  the  rather 
shall  be  perceived  and  known,  and  better  understood,  in  the  tongue 
used  in  the  said  realm,  and  by  so  much  every  man  of  the  said 
realm  may  the  better  govern  himself  without  offending  of  the 
law,  and  the  better  keep,  save;  and  defend  his  heritage  and  pos- 
sessions ;  and  in  divers  regions  and  countries,  where  the  king, 
the  nobles,  and  other  of  the  said  realm  have  been,  good  gov- 
ernance and  full  right  is  done  to  every  person,  because  that  their 
laws  and  customs  be  learned  and  used  in  the  tongue  of  the 
country." 

Yet,  oddly  enough,  this  very  statute  (of  which  we  have  here 
quoted  the  old  translation)  is  in  French,  which,  whatever  might  be 
the  case  with  the  great  body  of  the  people,  continued  down  to  a 
considerably  later  date  than  this  to  be  the  mother-tongue  of  oui 
Norman  royal  family,  and  probably  also  that  generally  spoken  at 
court  and  at  least  in  the  Upper  House  of  Parliament.  Ritson  asserts 
that  there  is  no  instance  in  which  Henry  IH.  is  known  to  have 
expressed  himself  in  English.  "  King  Edward  I.  generally,"  he 
continues,    "  or,   according  to  Andrew   of  Wyntoun,   constantly, 

1  As  quoted  by  Tyrwhitt,  from  Harl.  MS.  1900,  in  Essay  on  the  Language,  &c., 
jf  Chaucer. 


182  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

spoke  the  French  language,  both  in  the  council  and  in  tlie  field, 
many  of  his  sayings  in  that  idiom  being  recorded  by  our  old  histo- 
rians. When,  in  the  council  at  Norham,  in  1291—2,  Anthony 
Beck  had,  as  it  is  said,  proved  to  the  king,  by  reason  and  eloquence, 
that  Bruce  was  too  dangerous  a  neighbor  to  be  king  of  Scotland, 
his  Majesty  replied.  Par  le  sang  de  dieu,  vous  aves  Men  eschante,  and 
accordingly  adjudged  the  crown  to  Baliol ;  of  whom,  refusing  to 
obey  his  summons,  he  afterwards  said,  A  ce  fol  felon  tel  folie  fais  f 
SHI  ne  voult  venir  a  nous,  nous  viendrons  a  lui}  There  is  but  one 
instance  of  his  speaking  English  ;  which  was  when  the  great  sultan 
sent  ambassadors,  after  his  assassination,  to  protest  that  he  had  no 
knowledge  of  it.  These,  standing  at  a  distance,  adored  the  king, 
prone  on  the  gromid;  and  Edward  said  in  English  (in  Anglico^, 
You,  indeed,  adore,  hut  you  little  love,  me.  Nor  understood  they  his 
words,  because  they  spoke  to  him  by  an  interpreter.^  King  Ed- 
ward II.,  likewise,  who  married  a  French  princess,  used  himself 
the  French  tongue.  Sir  Henry  Spelman  had  a  manuscript,  in 
which  was  a  piece  of  poetry  entitled  Be  le  roi  Edward  le  jiz  roi 
Edward,  le  chanson  quHl  fist  mesmes,  which  Lord  Orford  was  un- 
acqviainted  with.  His  son  Edward  III.  always  wrote  his  letters  or 
despatches  m  French,  as  we  find  them  preserved  by  Robert  of 
Avesbury  ;  and  in  the  early  part  of  his  reign  even  the  Oxford 
scholars  were  confined  in  conversation  to  Latin  or  French.^  .... 
There  is  a  single  instance  preserved  of  this  monarch's  use  of  the 
English  language.  He  appeared  in  1349  in  a  tournament  at  Can- 
terbury with  a  white  swan  for  his  impress,  and  the  following  motto 
embroidered  on  his  shield  :  — 

'  Hay,  hay,  the  wythe  swan ! 
By  Godes  soul  I  am  tliy  man  ! '  * 

Lewis  Beaumont,  bishop  of  Durham,  1317,  understood  not  a  word 
of  either  Latin  or  English.  In  reading  the  bull  of  his  appointment, 
which  he  had  been  taught  to  spell  for  several  days  before,  he  stum- 

1  For  these  two  speeches,  the  latter  of  whicli,  by  the  by,  he  points  as  if  he  did 
not  understand  it,  IJitson  quotes  the  Scoticlironicon  (Fordun),  ii.  147,  156. 

'■^  For  this  anecdote  Ritson  quotes  Heniingford  (in  Gale),  p.  691. 

"  The  authority  for  this  last  statement  is  a  note  in  Warton's  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet 
i.  6  (edit,  of  182-1). 

♦  "  See  Warton's  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.  ii.  251  (i.  86,  in  edit,  of  1824).  He  hid 
mother,  '  It  is  as  it  is ; '  and  may  have  had  a  third,  '  Ha  St.  Edward !  Ha  ?■  t. 
George  ' " 


ANGLO-NORMAN  POETS.  183 

bled  upon  the  word  metropoKtice,  which  he  in  vain  endeavored  t€ 
pronounce ;  and,  having  hammered  over  it  a  considerable  time,  at 
last  cried  out,  in  his  mother  tongue,  Seit  pour  dite  !  Par  Seym 
LowyH  il  ne  fa  pas  curteis  qui  ceste  parole  id  escrit.^  The  first 
instance  of  the  English  language  which  Mr.  Tyrwhitt  had  dis- 
2overed  in  the  parliamentary  proceedmgs  was  the  confession  of 
Thomas,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  in  1398.  He  might,  however,  have 
met  with  a  petition  of  the  mercers  of  London  ten  years  earlier 
(^Rot.  Pari.  iii.  225).  The  oldest  English  instrument  produced  by 
Rymer  is  dated  1368  (vii.  526)  ;  but  an  indenture  in  the  same 
idiom  betwixt  the  abbot  and  convent  of  Whitby,  and  Robert  the 
son  of  John  Bustard,  dated  at  York  in  1343,^  is  the  earliest 
known."  ^ 


ANGLO-NORMAN   POETS. 

French  metrical  romances  and  other  poetry,  accordingly,  con- 
tinued to  be  written  in  England,  and  in  many  instances  by  Eng- 
lishmen, throughout  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries.  Of 
the  Anglo-Norman  poets  of  this  period  one  of  the  most  famous  is 
a  lady,  Marie,  who  describes  herself  as  of  France,  but  who  appears 
to  have  resided  in  England  in  the  time  of  Henry  III.  Her  poems 
—  consisting  principally  of  Lais,^  or  lays,  the  subjects  of  which  she 
professes  to  have  found  in  the  Bas  Breton,  or  Celtic  tongue  of 
Britany,  and  of  Fables  in  the  manner  of  JEsop,  translated,  she 
says,  from  an  English  version  made  by  a  king  of  England,  by  which 
she  probably  means  a  collection  attributed  to  Alfred  the  Great, 
although  another  theory  is  that  she  refers  to  a  work  by  Henry  I. — 
were  first  brought  into  notice  by  Tyrwhitt  (Introductory  Discourse 
to  the   Canterbury  Tales  of  Chaucer,  notes   24   and  29)  :    they 

1  "  Robert  de  Graystanes,  Anglia  Sacra,  i.  761  — '  Take  it  as  said !  By  St.  Lewis, 
he  was  not  very  civil  who  wrote  this  word  liere.'  " 

^  "  Charlton's  History  of  Whitby,  247." 

^  Dissertation  on  Romance  and  Minstrelsy,  pp.  Ixxv.-lxxxvi  We  have  not 
Ihouglit  it  necessary  to  preserve  Ritson's  peculiar  spelling,  adopted,  apparently,  on 
10  principle  except  that  of  deviating  from  the  established  usage. 

*  The  derivation  of  this  word  remains,  we  believe,  an  unsolved  puzzle,  or  at  least 
I  subject  of  dispute,  among  etymologists.  One  conjecture  would  make  it  to  be  the 
lame  word  with  lie. 


184  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

were  afterwards  made  the  subject  of  a  paper  by  the  Abbd  de  la 
Rue,  ni  the  Arclia?()h)gia  (voL  xiii.  pp.  35—67,  pubHshed  in  1797)  ; 
and  they  have  since  been  pubhshed  by  M.  B.  de  Roquefort  nndei 
the  title  of  Poesies  de  Marie  de  France,  ou  Recueil  de  Lais,  Fables, 
et  autres  productions  de  cette  femme  c^lebre,  2  vols.  8vo.,  Paris, 
1820.  An  account,  including  nearly  a  complete  translation,  of 
the  Lais,  which  are  twelve  m  number  (besides  two  which  M.  de 
Roquefort  has  printed,  apparently  without  any  authority  for  assign- 
ing them  to  Marie),  is  given  by  Ellis  in  his  Early  English  Metrical 
Romances  (Appendix  ii.  to  Introduction,  pp.  143-200)  ;  ^  and  the 
reader  may  also  consult  what  has  been  written  about  Marie  by 
Ritson,  in  a  note  to  the  romance  of  Emare  (Ancient  English 
Metrical  Romances,  iii.  330),  by  Mr.  Price,  in  a  long  and  elaborate 
note  upon  Warton  (Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  i.  Ixxiv.-lxxxvi),  and  by 
the  Abbe  de  la  Rue  (in  his  Essais  Historiques,  iii.  47—100).  Le 
Grand  d'Aussy  has  given  prose  versions  or  paraphrases  of  forty- 
three  of  Marie's  Fables  in  his  work  entitled  Fabliaux  ou  Contes  du 
xii""  et  du  xiii"'  Siecles,  &c. 

Marie  is  mentioned  as  his  contemporary  by  Denis  Pyi'am,  or 
Pyramus,  who  was  also  probably  a  native  of  France,  but  lived  at 
the  court  of  Henry  III.,  and  was  in  his  earher  years  the  author  of 
many  serventois,  anacreontic  songs,  and  other  gay  pieces,  but  whose 
only  remaining  compositions  are  two  religious  poems  written  in  the 
sobriety  and  penitence  of  his  old  age :  the  first,  on  the  life  and 
martyrdom  of  St.  Edmond,  in  3286  verses ;  the  second,  in  714 
verses,  on  the  miracles  of  the  same  royal  saint.^ 

Another  trouveur  of  this  date  was  no  less  a  person  than  the 
famous  Grostete,  bishop  of  Lincoln,  already  mentioned.  Grostete, 
who  was  an  Englishman,  a  native  of  Suffolk,  is  the  author  of  a 
religious  romance  of  1748  lines  on  the  favorite  subject  of  the  Fall 
and  Restoration  of  Man,  which  is  sometimes  called  the  Chastel 
d' Amour  (by  which  expression  the  Virgin  Mary  is  meant),  some- 
times the  Roman  des  Romans  ;  and  there  is  also  attributed  to  him 
another  French  poem  of  much  greater  length,  which  M.  de  la  Rue 
thinks  is  the  same  that  is  preserved  in  one  of  the  royal  manuscripts 
at   the  Hritish  Museum  (MS.  Reg.  16  E.  ix.),  and  is  in  that  copy 

1  He  lias  also  printed,  in  vol.  iii.  pp.  2'Jl-307,  an  account,  communicated  by  Sir 
vV alter  Scott,  of  an  early  English  translation  of  one  of  them,  tlie  Lai  le  Frtusne, 
'.ontained  in  the  Aucliinleck  MS.  in  the  Ailvocates'  Library,  Edinburgh. 

''■  See  De  la  liue,  Essais  Historiques,  iii.  101-100. 


ANGLO-NORMAN   POETS.  185 

entitled  Traits  des  Pdch^s  et  des  Vertus,  although  spoken  of  by 
other  copyists  as  the  Manuel.  It  consists  of  more  than  7000 
verses. 

The  title  by  which  Grostete's  second  work  is  commonly  referred 
to  is  the  Manuel  des  Pech^s ;  but  the  only  known  French  poem 
bearing  this  title  appears  to  be  the  work  of  a  later  writer,  William 
of  Wadington,  who  lived  in  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  or  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  It  is  a  translation,  but  with  much  ad- 
ditional matter,  from  a  Latin  poem  entitled  Floretus,  which  was 
printed  both  in  folio  at  London,  and  in  4to.  at  Caen,  in  the  same 
year,  1512.^  Wadington's  Manuel,  which  contains  nearly  10,000 
verses,^  exists  in  several  manuscripts  ;  of  which  two  in  the  Har- 
leian  collection  have  at  the  end  a  farewell  address  to  the  reader, 
explaining  his  object  in  undertaking  the  translation.  It  was,  he 
says,  with  a  view  of  making  the  beauties  of  the  Floretus  be  felt 
by  a  people  who  ran  eagerly  after  everything  written  in  French 
verse,  and  that  the  work  might  be  understood  by  great  and  small ; 
which  proves,  observes  the  Abb^  de  la  Rue,  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  French  language  was  then  generally  diffused  in  England. 
Wadington  also  asks  his  readers  to  pardon  the  faults  he  may  have 
committed,  whether  in  expression  or  in  regard  to  the  laws  of 
rhyme,  on  the  ground  that,  being  an  Englishman  by  birth,  it  was 
impossible  that  he  should  write  French  verse  with  perfect  purity 
and  correctness. 

A  peculiar  subject  which  engaged  many  of  the  French  poets  of 
the  thirteenth  century  was  the  history  of  Alexander  the  Great ) 
about  a  dozen  trouveurs  of  France  and  England  are  enumerated 
who  devoted  themselves  to  this  singular  chapter  of  the  romance  of 
chivalry,  and  several  of  their  performances  still  survive,  although 
they  can  scarcely  in  any  case  be  assigned  with  certainty  to  their 
proper  authors.  One  Roman  d' Alexandre  is  attributed,  at  least  in 
Bome  copies,  to  a  Thomas  of  Kent,  who  is  placed  by  some  authori- 
ties in  the  twelfth  century  ;  ^  by  others,  about  the  beginning  of  the 
fourteenth ;  *  and  who,  it  has  been  suggested,  may  possibly  be 
the  author  of  the  French  romance  of  Le  Roi  Horn,  and  also  the 
Thomas  referred  to  by  Robert  de  Brunne  as  the  original  narrator 

1  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  iii.  226.  In  a  paper  in  the  Archaeologia,  vol.  xiii.  pp.  230. 
&c.  (read  in  1798,  published  in  1800),  this  date  is  given  1520. 

2  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  iii.  231.   In  the  Archaeologia  (vol.  xiii.)  he  says  nearly  6000 
^  See  M.  Vanpraat,  Catalogue  de  la  Valliere,  ii.  160. 

*  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  ii.  352. 
VOL.  I.  24 


186  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

of  the  story  of  Sir  Tristrem,  which  upon  this  supposition  must  have 
first  appeared  in  Norman-French,^  Another  celebrated  early 
French  romance  is  that  of  Havelok  le  Danois  —  founded  on  a 
well-known  story  of  the  Saxon  era,  relating  to  the  town  of  Grims- 
by in  Lincolnshire  —  which  has  been  very  ably  edited  for  the  Rox- 
burgh Club  by  Sir  Frederick  Madden,  along  with  the  somewhat 
shorter  relation  of  the  same  adventures  which  is  found  in  Gaimar's 
continuation  of  Wace's  Brut,  and  a  much  longer  English  poem  on 
the  same  subject. ^  M.  de  la  Rue,  however,  seems  to  have  shown 
that  the  learned  editor  is  mistaken  in  attributing  to  the  separate 
Roman  (which  extends  to  1106  hues)  the  priority  in  point  of  time 
over  the  version  given  by  Gaimar  (containing  818  lines)  ;  and  to 
have  proved  that  it  belongs  not  to  the  earlier  part  of  the  twelfth, 
but  to  the  thirteenth  century.^ 

Other  trouveurs  of  this  period,  connected  with  England  either 
by  birth,  residence,  or  the  subjects  of  their  poetry,  are  :  —  Chardry, 
supposed  to  have  been  born  in  Gloucestershire  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  author  of  several  rehgious  romances,  —  one  (of  2924 
verses)  on  the  lives  of  Saint  Barlaam  and  St.  Josaphat,  another 
(of  1750  vei'ses)  on  the  legend  of  the  Seven  Sleepers,  a  third  (of 
about  2000  verses)  entitled  Le  Petit  Plet,  being  a  dispute  between 
an  old  and  a  young  man  on  the  happiness  and  misery  of  human 
life  ;  ^  Adam  de  Ros,  an  English  monk  of  the  same  age,  from  whom 
we  have  a  poem  on  the  legend  of  the  descent  of  St.  Paul  to  the 
infernal  regions  ;  ^  Helie  of  Winchester,  the  translator  of  the  Dis- 
tichs  of  Cato,  for  the  use,  as  he  says,  of  those  of  the  English  who, 
not  understanding  Latin,  spoke  only  the  Romance  (or  French)  ;  ^ 

1  See  Remarks  on  Sir  W.  Scott's  Sir  Tristrem  (known  to  be  by  Sir  Frederick 
Madden)  in  Gent.  Mag.  lor  October,  1833  (vol.  ciii.,  part  ii.,  p.  308) ;  and  also  the 
Introduction  to  Ilavelok  by  tlie  same  gentleman,  p.  xlvii. 

^  The  Ancient  English  Romance  of  Havelok  the  Dane,  accompanied  by  the 
French  text;  witli  an  introduction,  notes,  and  a  glossary'.  4to.  London,  1828. 
See  also  Examination  of  the  Remarks  on  the  Glossary  to  the  ancient  Metrical  Ro- 
mance of  Havelok  the  Dane,  in  a  Letter  to  Francis  Douce,  Esq.,  F.  A.  S.,  by  S. 
W.  Singer,  addressed  to  Henry  Petrie,  Esq.,  Keeper  of  his  Majesty's  Records 
in  the  Tower  of  London,  by  the  Editor  of  Havelok.  4to.  Lond.  1829.  The  French 
Romance,  with  a  translation  of  part  of  Sir  Frederick  Madden's  Introduction,  was 
repiihlisiied,  in  crown  8vo.,  at  Paris,  in  1833,  by  M.  Francisqxie  Michel,  with  the 
title  of  Lai  d'Havelok  le  Danois ;  treizieme  Siecle.  The  pubUcation  is  dedicated 
to  the  Abbe  de  la  Rue,  by  "  son  admirateur  et  son  ami." 

*  Essais  Historiqucs,  iii.  114-120. 

*  See  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  iii.  127-138.  ^  ij.  139-145. 
''  Id.  150,  151  ;  see  also  Tyrwhitt,  Essay,  note  55. 


ANGLO-NORMAN  POETS.  187 

the  anonymous  author  of  a  contmuation  of  Wace's  Brut,  m  the 
common  octosyllabic  verse,  in  which  he  brings  down  the  history, 
in  a  fierce  anti-Norman  spirit,  fi'om  the  death  of  Cadwallader  at  the 
close  of  the  seventh  century  to  the  twenty-fourth  year  of  the  reign 
of  Henry  III.  (a.  d.  1240),  telling,  among  other  things  not  else- 
where to  be  found,  a  remarkable  story  of  a  prophetic  revelation 
made  to  the  Conqueror  touching  the  fates  of  his  three  sons ;  ^  Pierre 
du  Ries,  a  Norman,  described  as  a  writer  of  true  poetical  genius, 
who  is  the  author  of  the  romance  of  Anseis  de  Carthage,  one  of 
the  Paladins  of  Charlemagne,  in  10,850  verses,  of  the  Roman  de 
Beuves  de  Hamton  et  de  s'amie  Josiane,  fille  du  Roi  d'Armenie 
(our  English  Bevis  of  Hampton),  in  18,525  verses,  and  of  a  con- 
tinuation of  a  romance  on  the  subject  of  Judas  Machabeus  begun 
by  Gautier  de  Belleperche  ;  ^  Godfrey  of  Waterford,  an  Irish  Do- 
minican monk,  the  author  of  a  verse  translation  of  the  pretended 
Trojan  History  of  Dares  Phrygius,  and  also  of  several  other  ver- 
sions of  Latin  works  into  French  prose  ;  ^  Robert  Bikez,  the  writer, 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  of  the  Lai  du  Corn, 
founded  on  a  very  popular  Arthurian  fiction  ;  *  two  anonymous 
writers  of  the  same  age,  to  each  of  whom  we  owe  a  short  poem  on 
the  Purgatory  of  St.  Patrick  (one  of  about  1800,  and  the  other  of 
about  760  verses)  ;  ^  Walter  of  Exeter,  a  Franciscan  monk  of 
Cornwall,  to  whom  is  attributed  the  romance  of  Guy  de  Warwick, 
et  de  Felice  fille  du  Comte  de  Bukingham  (extending  to  nearly 
11,500  verses)  ;  and  Peter  de  Langtoft,  a  canon  of  the  priory  of 
St.  Augustine  at  Bridlington,  in  Yorkshire,  who  has  left  us  a  trans- 
lation of  the  British  History  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  a  continu- 
ation of  the  English  story  in  the  same  style  from  the  arrival  of  the 
Saxons  to  the  reign  of  Edward  L,  a  Life  of  that  King,  a  transla- 
tion of  Herbert  de  Bosham's  Latin  Life  of  Becket,  and  one  or  two 
sliorter  pieces,  all  in  French  verse. ^ 

1  See  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  iii.  157-169  ;  also  in  Archaeologia,  xiii.  242-246. 

2  Id.  170-179. 
8  Id.  p.  211. 

*  See  Tyrwhitt,  Discourse,  note  24 ;  Warton,  Hist.  ii.  432 ;  and  De  la  Rue, 
Essais,  iii.  216. 

s  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  iii.  245.  Upon  this  subject  see  St.  Patrick's  Purgatory,  an 
Essay  on  the  Legends  of  Purgatory,  Hell,  and  Paradise,  current  during  the  Middla 
A.ges ;  by  Thomas  Wright,  Esq.     8vo.  Lend.  1844. 

6  De  la  Rue,  Essais,  iii.  234-239. 


188  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 


FRENCH    PROSE    ROMANCES.  —  FROISSART. 

Down  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  verse  was  probably  the 
only  form  in  which  romances,  meaning  originally  any  compositions 
in  the  Romance  or  French  language,  then  any  narrative  composi- 
tions Avhatever,  were  wi'itten  ;  in  the  thirteenth,  a  few  may  have 
appeared  in  prose  ;  but  before  the  close  of  the  foiu'teenth  prose  had 
become  the  usual  form  in  which  such  works  were  produced,  and 
many  of  the  old  metrical  romances  had  been  recast  in  this  new 
shape.  The  early  French  prose  romances,  however,  do  not,  hke 
their  metrical  predecessors,  belong  in  any  sense  to  the  hteratvu'e  of 
this  country :  many  of  them  were  no  doubt  generally  read  for  a 
time  in  England  as  well  as  in  France  ;  but  we  have  no  reason  for 
believing  that  anv  of  them  were  primarilv  addi'essed  to  the  Eno;- 
lish  public,  or  were  written  in  England  or  by  English  subjects,  and 
even  dming  the  brief  space  that  they  continued  popular  they  seem 
to  have  been  regarded  as  foreign  importations.  Their  history, 
therefore,  is  no  part  of  our  present  subject.  But  there  is  one  re- 
markable product  of  the  French  literature  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tuiy  which  must  be  made  an  exception,  4;he  Clu-onicle  of  the  inimi- 
table Sire  Jean  Froissart.  This  work,  indeed,  has,  in  eveiythuig 
except  the  language  in  which  it  is  written,  nearly  as  much  of  an 
EngUsh  as  of  a  Frencli  interest.  Froissart  was  a  native  of  Valen- 
ciennes, where  he  appears  to  have  been  bom  about  1337  ;  but  the 
four  Books  of  liis  Chronicle  —  which  relates  principally  to  English 
aftairs,  though  the  narrative  embraces  also  the  course  of  events  in 
France,  Flanders,  Scotland,  and  other  countries  —  comprehend 
the  space  fi-om  1326  to  1400,  or  the  whole  of  the  reigns  of  our  Ed- 
ward III.  and  Richard  II.  For  the  first  thirty  years  of  this  space 
he  intimates  that  his  authority  was  a  previous  writer,  Jean  le  Bel, 
canon  of  Li^ge,  whom  he  greatly  praises  for  his  diligence  and  ac- 
curacy ;  and  some  years  ago  the  Chronicle  of  Le  Bel,  which  was 
supposed  to  have  perished,  was  discovered  in  the  library  of  the  old 
Dukes  of  Burgundy  at  Bnissels,  when  it  turned  out  that  Frois- 
sart's  first  eighty  chaptei-s  are  almost  a  literal  transcript  fi'om  his 
predecessor.  Froissart,  however,  is  rather  of  authority  as  a  painter 
of  manners  than  as  an  historian  of  events ;  for  his  passion  for  the 
marvellous  and  the  decorative  was  so  strong,  that  the  simple  fact, 
we  fear,  would  have  had  little  chance  of  acceptance  with  him  in 


FROISSART.  189 

any  case  when  it  came  Into  competition  with  a  good  story.  In  liig 
OAvn,  and  in  the  next  age,  accordingly,  his  history  was  generally 
reckoned  and  designated  a  romance.  Caxton,  in  his  Boke  of  the 
Ordre  of  Chevalrye  or  Knighthood,  classes  it  with  the  romances  of 
Lancelot  and  Percival ;  and  indeed  the  Roman  au  Cln-oniques 
seems  to  have  been  the  title  by  which  it  was  at  first  commonly 
known.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  it  is  fair  to  remember  that  a 
romance  was  not  in  those  days  held  to  be  necessarily  a  fiction. 
Froissart's  Chronicle  is  certainly  the  trnest  and  most  lively  pictnre 
that  any  writer  has  bequeathed  to  us  of  the  spirit  of  a  particular 
era ;  it  shows  "  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and 
pressure."  In  a  higher  than  the  literal  sense,  the  most  apocryj)hal 
incidents  of  this  most  splendid  and  imaginative  of  gossips  are  full 
of  truth ;  they  cast  more  light  upon  the  actual  men  and  manners 
that  are  described,  and  bring  back  to  life  more  of  the  long-huried 
past,  than  the  most  careful  details  of  any  other  historian.  The 
popularity  of  Froissart's  Chronicle  has  thrown  into  the  shade  his 
other  productions ;  but  his  highest  fame  in  his  own  day  was  as  a 
writer  of  poetry.  His  greatest  poetical  work  appears  to  have  been 
a  romance  entitled  Meliador,  or  the  Knight  of  the  Sun  of  Gold; 
and  he  also  wrote  many  shorter  pieces,  chants  royaux,  ballads,  ron- 
deaux,  and  pastorals,  in  what  was  then  called  the  New  Poetiy, 
which,  indeed,  he  cultivated  with  so  much  success  that  he  has  by 
some  been  regarded  as  its  inventor.^  On  his  introduction  to  Rich- 
ard II.,  when  he  paid  his  last  visit  to  England  in  1396,  he  presented 
that  monarch,  as  he  tells  us,  with  a  book  beautifully  illuminated, 
engrossed  with  his  own  hand,  bound  in  crimson  velvet,  and  embel- 
lished with  silver  bosses,  clasps  and  golden  roses,  comprehending  all 
the  pieces  of  Amours  and  Moralities  which  he  had  composed  in  the 
twenty-four  preceding  years.  Richard,  he  adds,  seemed  much 
pleased,  and  examined  the  book  in  many  places ;  for  he  was  fond 
of  reading  as  well  as  speaking  French. 

^  See  Warton,  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poetry,  ii.  173,  300.  —  "It  is  a  proof  of  the  decay 
of  invention  among  the  French  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  that 
about  that  period  tliey  began  to  translate  into  prose  their  old  metrical  romances. 
....  At  length,  about  the  year  1380,  in  the  place  of  the  Provencial,  a  new  speciee 
Df  poetry  succeeded  in  France,  consisting  of  Chants  Royaux,  Baladcs,  Rondeaur 
md  Pastorales.     This  was  distinguished  by  the  appellation  of  the  New  Poetry.'' 


190  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


RESURRECTION   OF   THE   ENGLISH   LANGUAGE. 

But  for  the  last  fifty  years  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  French 
language  had  been  rapidly  losing  the  position  it  had  held  among  us 
from  the  middle  of  the  eleventh,  and  becomino-  amono;  all  classes 
in  England  a  foreign  tongue.  We  have  already  produced  the  tes- 
timonies of  Higden  writing  immediately  before  the  commencement 
of  this  chang-e,  and  of  Trevisa  after  it  had  been  soins  on  for  about 
a  quarter  of  a  century ;  to  these  may  now  be  added  what  Chaucer 
writes,  probably  within  ten  years  after  the  date  (1385)  which  Tre- 
visa expressly  notes  as  that  of  his  statement.  In  the  Prologue  to 
his  Testament  of  Love,  a  prose  work,  which  seems  to  have  been 
far  advanced,  if  not  finished,  in  1392,^  the  gi-eat  father  of  our  Eng- 
lish poetry,  speaking  of  those  of  his  countrymen  who  still  persisted 
in  writing  French  verse,  expresses  himself  thus :  —  "  Certes  there 
ben  some  that  speke  thyr  poysy  mater  in  Frenche,  of  whyche 
speche  the  Frenclie  men  have  as  good  a  fantasye  as  we  have  in 
hearing  of  French  mennes  Englyshe."  And  afterwards  he  adds, 
"  Let,  then,  clerkes  endyten  in  Latyn,  for  they  have  the  propertye 
in  science  and  the  knowinge  in  that  facultye,  and  lette  Frenclimen 
in  theyr  Frenche  also  endyte  theyr  queynt  termes,  for  it  is  kyndly 
[natural]  to  theyr  mouthes  ;  and  let  us  shewe  our  fantasyes  in  suche 
wordes  as  we  learneden  of  our  dames  tonge."  French,  it  is  evi- 
dent from  this,  although  it  might  still  be  a  common  acquirement 
among  the  higher  classes,  had  ceased  to  be  the  mother-tongue  of 
any  class  of  Englishmen,  and  was  only  known  to  those  to  whom 
it  was  taught  by  a  master.  So,  the  Prioress  in  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  although  she  could  speak  French  "ful  fayre  and  fetisly,"  or 
neatly,  spoke  it  only 

"  After  the  scole  of  Stratford  atte  Bowe, 
For  Frenche  of  Paris  was  to  hire  [her]  nnknowe."  ^ 

^  See  Tyrwliitt's  Account  of  the  works  of  Cliaucer,  prefixed  to  liis  Glossary. 

2  It  is  impossible  to  believe  with  Sir  Harris  Nicolas,  in  his  otherwise  verj'  clear 
and  judicious  Life  of  Chaucer  (8vo.  Lond.  184:5;  additional  note,  p.  142),  that 
Chaucer  perhaps  here  meant  to  intimate  that  the  prioress  could  not  speak  French 
at  all,  on  the  groiuid  that  the  expression  "French  of  Stratford-at-Bow  "  is  used  in 
a  tract  published  in  1586  (Feme's  Blazon  of  Gentrie),  to  describe  the  lantiuajje  of 
English  heraldry.  In  the  first  place  the  phrase  is  not  there  "  a  colloquial  parar 
phrase  for  English,"  but  for  the  mixed  French  and  English,  or,  as  it  might  be  re- 
garded, Anglicized  or  corrupted  French,  of  our  heralds.     But,  at  any  rate,  can  it 


RESURRECTION  OF   THE   ENGLISH  LANGUAGE.         193 

From  this,  as  from  many  other  passages  in  old  writers,  we  learn 
that  the  French  taught  and  spoken  in  England  had,  as  was  indeed 
inevitable,  become  a  corrupt  dialect  of  the  language,  or  at  least 
very  different  from  the  French  at  Paris.  But,  as  the  foreign 
tongue  lost  its  hold  and  declined  in  purity,  the  old  Teutonic 
speech  of  the  native  population,  favored  by  the  same  circumstances 
and  course  of  events  which  checked  and  depressed  its  rival,  and 
having  at  last,  after  going  through  a  process  almost  of  dissolution 
and  putrefaction,  begun  to  assume  a  new  organization,  gradually 
recovered  its  ascendency. 

We  have  already  examined  the  first  revolution  which  the  lan- 
guage underwent,  and  endeavored  to  explain  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  brought  about.  It  consisted  in  the  disintegration  of  the 
grammatical  system  of  the  language,  and  the  conversion  of  it  from 
an  inflectional  and  synthetic  into  a  comparatively  non-inflected  and 
analytic  language.  The  vocabulary,  or  what  we  may  call  the  sub- 
stance of  the  language,  was  not  changed ;  that  remained  still 
purely  Gothic,  as  it  always  had  been ;  only  the  old  form  or  struc- 
ture was  broken  up  or  obliterated.  There  was  no  mixture  or  infu- 
sion of  any  foreign  element ;  the  language  was  as  it  were  decom- 
posed, but  was  not  adulterated,  and  the  process  of  decomposition 
may  be  regarded  as  having  been  the  work  of  the  eleventh  century, 
and  as  having  been  begun  by  the  Danish  Conquest  and  consum- 
mated by  the  Norman. 

This  first  revolution  which  the  lanoTiage  underwent  is  to  be  care- 
fully  distinguished  from  the  second,  which  was  brought  about  by 
the  combination  of  the  native  with  a  foreign  element,  and  con- 
sisted essentially  in  the  change  made  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  lan- 
guage by  the  introduction  of  numerous  terms  borrowed  from  the 
French.  Of  this  latter  innovation  we  find  little  trace  till  long  after 
the  completion  of  the  former.  For  nearly  two  centuries  after  the 
Conquest  the  English  seems  to  have  been  spoken  and  written  (to 
the  small  extent  to  which  it  was  written)  with  scarcely  any  inter- 
mixture of  Norman.  It  only,  in  fact,  began  to  receive  such  inter- 
mixture after  it  came  to  be  adopted  as  the  speech  of  that  part  of 

be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  Chaucer  would  take  so  roundabout  and  fantastic  a 
way  as  this  of  telling  his  readers  so  simple  a  fact,  as  that  his  prioress  could  speak 
her  native  tongue  1  He  would  never  have  spent  three  words  upon  such  a  matter, 
much  less  three  lines. 


192  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

the  Da1=k)n  -"vhich  liad  prcAaously  spoken  French.  And  this  adop- 
tion w«,s  T>l<iiiil.y  tJie  cause  of  the  intermixture.  So  long  as  it 
remained  the  language  only  of  those  who  had  heen  accustomed 
to  speak  it  from  their  mfancy,  and  who  had  never  known  any 
other,  it  might  have  gradually  become  changed  in  its  internal 
organization,  but  it  could  scarcely  acquire  any  additions  from  a 
foreign  source.  What  should  have  tempted  the  Saxon  peasant  to 
substitute  a  Norman  term,  upon  any  occasion,  for  the  word  of  the 
Bame  meaning  with  which  the  language  of  his  ancestors  supplied 
him  ?  As  for  things  and  occasions  for  which  new  names  were  ne- 
cessary, they  must  have  come  comparatively  little  in  his  way  ;  and, 
when  they  did,  the  capabilities  of  his  native  tongue  were  sufficient 
to  furnish  him  Avith  appropriate  forms  of  expression  from  its  own 
resources.  The  corruption  of  the  English  by  the  intermixture  of 
French  vocables  raust  have  pi'oceeded  fi'om  those  whose  original 
language  Avas  French,  and  who  were  in  habits  of  constant  inter- 
course with  French  customs,  French  literature,  and  everything 
else  that  was  French,  at  the  same  time  that  they,  occasionally  at 
least,  spoke  English.  And  this  supposition  is  in  pei'fect  accordance 
with  the  historical  fact.  So  long  as  the  Eno-lish  was  the  lano-uag-e 
of  only  a  part  of  the  nation,  and  the  French,  as  it  were,  struggled 
with  it  for  mastery,  it  remained  unadulterated; — when  it  became 
the  speech  of  the  whole  people,  of  the  higher  classes  as  Avell  as  of 
the  lower,  then  it  lost  its  old  Teutonic  purity,  and  received  a  larger 
alien  admixture  from  the  alien  lips  through  which  it  passed. 
Whether  this  Avas  a  fortunate  circumstance,  or  the  reverse,  is 
another  question.  It  may  just  be  remarked,  however,  that  the 
English,  if  it  had  been  left  to  its  own  spontaneous  and  unassisted 
development,  Avould  prol)ably  have  assumed  a  character  resembling 
rather  that  of  the  Dutch  or  the  Flemish  than  that  of  the  German 
of  the  present  dav. 

The  commencement  of  this  second  revolution,  Avhich  changed 
the  very  substance  of  the  language,  may  most  probably  be  dated 
from  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  or  about  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  after  the  completion  of  the  first,  Avhich  affected, 
hot  the  substance  or  vocabulary  of  the  language,  but  only  its  form 
or  grammatical  system. 


SECOND  ENGLISH:  — 

COMMONLY   CALLED    SEMI-SAXON. 

The  cliief  remains  that  we  have  of  English  verse  for  the  first 
two  centuries  after  the  Conquest  have  been  enumerated  by  Sir 
Frederic  Madden  in  a  comprehensive  paragraph  of  his  valuable 
Introduction  to  the  romance  of  Havelock,  which  we  will  take 
leave  to  transcribe :  —  "  The  notices  by  which  we  are  enabled  to 
trace  the  rise  of  our  Saxon  poetry  from  the  Saxon  period  to  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century  are  few  and  scanty.  We  may,  indeed, 
comprise  them  all  in  the  Song  of  Canute  recorded  by  the  monk 
of  Ely  [Hist.  Elyens.  p.  505  apud  Gale],  who  wrote  about  1166; 
the  words  put  into  the  mouth  of  Aldred,  archbishop  of  York,  who 
died  in  1069  [W.  Malmesb.  de  Gest.  Pontif.  1.  i.  p.  271]  ;  the 
verses  ascribed  to  St.  Godric,  the  hermit  of  Finchale,  who  died  in 
1170  [Rits.  Bibliogr.  Poet.]  ;  the  few  lines  preserved  by  Lam- 
barde  and  Camden  attributed  to  the  same  period  [Rits.  Anc.  Songs, 
Diss.  p.  xxviii.]  ;  and  the  prophecy  said  to  have  been  set  up  at 
Here  in  the  year  1189,  as  recorded  by  Benedict  Abbas,  Roger 
Hoveden,  and  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost  [Rits.  Metr.  Rom.  Diss, 
p.  Ixxiii.].  To  the  same  reign  of  Henry  II.  are  to  be  assigned  the 
metrical  compositions  of  Layamon  [MS.  Cott.  Cal.  A.  ix.,  and 
Otho  C.  xiii.].  and  Orm  [MS.  Jun.  1],  and  also  the  legends  of 
St.  Katherine,  St.  Margaret,  and  St.  Juhan  [MS.  Bodl.  34],  with 
some  few  others,  from  which  we  may  learn  with  tolerable  accuracy 
the  state  of  the  language  at  that  time,  and  its  gradvial  formation 
from  the  Saxon  to  the  shape  it  subsequently  assumed.  From  this 
period  to  the  middle  of  the  next  centmy  nothing  occurs  to  which 
we  can  affix  any  certain  date  ;  but  we  shall  probably  not  err  in 
ascribing  to  that  interval  the  poems  ascribed  to  John  de  Gulde- 
vorde  [MSS.  Cott.  Cal.  A.  ix.,  Jes.  Coll.  Oxon.  29],  the  Biblical 
History  [MS.  Bennet  Cant.  R.  11]  and  Poetical  Paraphrase  of  the 
Psalms  [MSS.  Cott.  Vesp.  D.  vii.,  Coll.  Benn.  Cant.  O.  6,  Bodl. 
921]  quoted  by  Warton,  and  the  Moral  Ode  piiblished  by  Hickes 
[MSS.  Digby  4,  Jes.  Coll.  Oxon.  29].  Between  the  years  1244 
and  1258,  we  know,  was  written  the  versification  of  part  of  a 
meditation  of  St.  Augustine,  as  proved  by  the  age  of  the  prior  who 
gave  the  MS.  to  the  Durham  Library  [MS.  Eccl.  Dun.  A.  iii.  12 

VOL.  I.  25 


194  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  Bodl.  42].  Soon  after  this  time  also  were  composed  the  ear- 
her  Songs  in  Ritson  and  Percy  (1264),  with  a  few  more  pieces 
which  it  is  unnecessary  to  particularize.  This  will  bring  us  to  the 
close  of  Henry  III.'s  reign  and  beginning  of  his  successor's,  the 
period  assigned  by  our  poetical  antiquaries  to  the  romances  of  Sir 
Tristrem,  Kyng  Horn,  and  Kyng  Alesaunder."  ^ 

The  verse  that  has  been  preserved  of  the  song  composed  by 
Canute  as  he  was  one  day  rowing  on  the  Nen,  while  the  holy 
music  came  floating  on  the  air  and  alona:  the  water  from  the  choir 
of  the  neighboring  minster  of  Ely,  —  a  song  which  we  are  told 
by  the  historian  continued  to  his  day,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century 
and  a  half,  to  be  a  universal  popular  favorite,^  —  is  very  nearly 
such  English  as  was  written  in  the  fourteenth  century.  This 
interesting  fragment  properly  falls  to  be  given  as  the  first  of  our 
specimens :  — 

Merle  sungen  the  muneches  binnen  Ely 
Tha  Cnut  Ching  raw  there  by : 
Roweth,  cnihtes,  noer  the  lant, 
And  here  we  thes  muneches  saeng. 

That  is,  literally,  — 

Merry  (sweetly)  sung  the  monks  within  Ely 
That  (when)  Cnute  King  rowed  thereby : 
Row,  knights,  near  the  land, 
And  hear  we  these  monks'  song. 

Being  in  verse  and  in  rhyme,  it  is  probable  that  the  words  are 
reported  in  their  original  form ;  they  cannot,  at  any  rate,  be  much 
altered. 

The  not  very  clerical  address  of  Archbishop  Aldred  to  Ursus, 
Earl  of  Worcester,  who  refused  to  take  down  one  of  his  castles 
the  ditch  of  which  encroached  upon  a  monastic  churchyard,  con- 
sists, as  reported  by  Wilham  of  Malmesbury  (whc  by-the-by 
praises  its  elegance)  of  only  two  short  lines :  — 

Hatest  thou  *  Urge  ? 
'  Have  thou  God's  curse. 

^  The  Ancient  English  Romance  of  Havelok  tlie  Dane ;  Introduction,  p.  xlix. 
We  liavc  transferred  the  references,  enclosed  in  brackets,  from  tlie  bottom  of  the 
pape  to  the  text. 

'  Quae  usque  liodie  in  choris  publice  cantantur,  et  in  proverbiis  memorantur. 

^  That  is,  Higlitest  thou  (art  thou  called)?    Malmesbury's  Latin  translation  is, 


ST.   GODRIC.  195 

The  hymn  of  St.  Godi'ic  has  more  of  an  antique  character.  It 
is  thus  given  by  Ritson,  who  professes  to  have  collated  the  Royal 
MS.  5  F.  vii.,  and  the  Harleian  MS.  322,  and  refers  also  to  Matt. 
Parisiensis  Historia,  pp.  119,  120,  edit.  1640,  and  to  (MS.  Cott) 
Nero  D.  v. : — 

Sainte  Marie  |^clane]  virgine, 

Moder  Jhesu  Cristas  Nazarene, 

On  fo  \^or  fong],  schild,  help  thin  Godric, 

On  fang  brieg  hegilich  with  the  in  Godes  riche. 

Sainte  Marie,  Christe's  bur, 

Maidens  clenhad,  moderes  flur, 

Dilie  min  sinne  [^or  sennen],  rix  in  min  mod, 

Bring  me  to  winne  with  the  selfd  God. 

"  By  the  assistance  of  the  Latin  versions,"  adds  Ritson,  "  one  is 
enabled  to  give  it  literally  in  English,  as  follows :  —  Saint  Mary 
[chaste]  virgin ;  mother  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  take,  shield, 
help  thy  Godric  ;  take,  bring  him  quickly  with  thee  into  God's 
kingdom.  Saint  Mary,  Christ's  chamber,  purity  of  a  maiden, 
flower  of  a  mother,  destroy  my  sin,  reign  in  my  mind,  bring  me 
to  dwell  with  the  only  God." 

Two  other  short  compositions  of  the  same  poetical  eremite  are 
much  in  the  same  style.  One  is  a  couplet  said  to  have  been  sung 
to  him  by  the  spirit  or  ghost  of  his  sister,  who  appeared  to  him 
after  her  death  and  thus  assured  him  of  her  happiness :  — 

Crist  and  Sainte  Marie  swa  on  scamel  me  iledde 

That  ic  on  this  erde  ne  silde  with  mine  bare  fote  itredde. 

Which  Ritson  translates :  — "  Christ  and  Mary,  thus  supported, 
have  me  brought,  that  I  on  earth  should  not  with  my  bare  foot 
tread." 

The  other  is  a  hymn  to  St.  Nicholas :  — 

Sainte  Nicholaes,  Godes  druth, 

Tymbre  us  faire  scone  hus. 

At  thi  burth,  at  thi  bare, 

Sainte  Nicholaes,  bring  us  wel  there. 

"  That  is,"  says  Ritson,  "  Saint  Nicholas,  God's  lover,  build  us  a 

"  Vocaris  Ursus  :  habeas  Dei  maledictionem."    But  tlie  first  line  seems  to  be  inter 
rogative. 


196  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

fair  beautiful  house.  At  thy  birth,  at  thy  bier,  Saint  Nicholas, 
bring  us  safely  thither." 

As  for  the  rhymes  given  by  Lambarde  and  Camden  as  of  the 
twelfth  century,  they  can  hardly  in  the  shape  in  which  we  have 
them  be  of  anything  like  that  antiquity :  they  are,  in  fact,  in  the 
common  English  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Lambarde  (in  his 
Dictionary  of  England,  p.  36)  tells  us  that  a  rabble  of  Flemings 
and  Normans  brought  over  in  1173  by  Robert,  Earl  of  Leicester, 
when  they  were  assembled  on  a  heath  near  St.  Edmond's  Bury, 
"  fell  to  dance  and  sing, 

Hoppe  Wylikin,  hoppe  Wyllykin, 
Ingland  is  thyne  and  myne,  &c." 

Camden's  story  is  that  Hugh  Bigott,  Earl  of  Norfolk,  in  the  reign 
of  Stephen,  used  to  boast  of  the  impregnable  strength  of  liis  castle 
of  Bungey  after  this  fashion  :  — 

"  Were  I  in  my  castle  of  Bungey, 
Upon  the  river  of  Waveney, 
I  would  ne  care  for  the  king  of  Cockeney." 


THE    HERE   PROPHECY. 

What  Sir  Frederick  Madden  describes  as  "  the  prophecy  said 
to  have  been  set  up  at  Here  in  the  year  1189  "  is  given  by  RItson 
as  follows :  — 

"Whan  thu  sees  in  Here  hert  yreret, 

Than  sulen  Englcs  in  three  be  ydelet : 

That  an  into  Yrland  al  to  late  waie, 

That  other  into  Puille  mid  prude  bileve, 

The  thridde  into  Airhahen  herd  all  wreken  drechegen. 

These  lines,  which  he  calls  a  "  specimen  of  English  poetry,  appar- 
ently of  the  same  age "  (the  latter  part  of  the  12th  century), 
Ritson  says  are  preserved  by  Benedictus  Abbas,  by  Hoveden,  and 
by  the  Chronicle  of  Lanercost ;  and  he  professes  to  give  them,  and 
the  account  by  which  they  are  introduced,  from  "  the  former,"  by 
wliich  he  means  the  first  of  the  three.     But  in  truth  the  verses  do 


THE   HERE   PROPHECY.  197 

not  occur  as  he  has  printed  them  in  any  of  the  places  to  which  he 
refers.  Benedictus  Abbas  (p.  622)  has  two  versions  of  them,  the 
second  of  which  he  introduces  by  the  word  "  rectius  "'  (more  cor- 
rectly) ;  there  is  a  third  in  the  printed  Hoveden  ;  what  Ritson  has 
mistaken  for  the  Lanercost  Chronicle  is  an  imperfect  manuscript 
of  Hoveden  (Cotton  MS.  Claud.  D.  \ai.  fol.  101),  in  which  they 
occur  very  nearly  as  printed  in  his  Hoveden  by  Savile,  —  the  only 
difference  of  any  importance  being,  that  the  MS.  has  in  the  fourth 
line  "  bi  leue,"  whereas  Savile  (both  in  the  London  edition  1596, 
foh  386  r°,  and  in  the  Francfort  edition  1601,  p.  678)  has  "  bi 
seue."  Ritson's  transcript  is  evidently  taken  either  from  the 
manuscript  or  the  printed  Hoveden  :  it  is  quite  unlike  either  of  the 
versions  given  by  Benedictus.  But  it  is  a  very  inaccurate  tran- 
script :  to  pass  over  minor  variations,  all  the  four  originals,  for  in- 
stance, have  "  sal  "  or  "  sale  "  before  "  into  Yrland  "  in  the  third 
line ;  and  the  last  line  stands  nowhere  as  Ritson  has  given  it :  —  in 
the  first  copy  of  Benedictus  it  is,  "  The  thirde  in  hayre  haughen 
hert  alle  ydreghe  ;  "  in  the  second  it  is,  "  The  thride  in  hire  athen 
hert  alle  wreke  y-dreghe  ; "  in  the  MS.  Hoveden  it  is,  "  The 
thridde  into  airhahen  herd  alle  Wrek  y  drehegen  "  (or  perhaps 
''  drehegea  ")  ;  in  the  printed  Hoveden  it  is,  "  The  thridde  into 
Airhahen  herd  all  wreke  y  drechegen."  The  line  in  any  of  the 
four  forms  iu  which  we  have  it,  appears  to  be  entirely  unintelligi- 
ble ;  and  mdeed  the  verses  are  manifestly  corrupt  throughout, 
although  a  sort  of  sense  may  be  made  out  of  most  of  the  others. 
'•  I'uille  ''  is  "  Apulia  "  ;  and  the  "  wreke  "  in  the  last  line  may  have 
something  to  do  with  a  law  about  wrecks  which  both  Benedict  and 
Hoveden  immediately  go  on  to  state  that  Richard  proclaimed  at 
this  time,  A.  D.  1190,  after  his  successful  military  operations  against 
King  Tancred  in  Sicily  and  Calabria  (or  Apulia)  ;  but  what  is 
*' Airhahen  "  ?  or  where,  can  any  one  tell,  is  the  town  of  "  Here," 
of  which  Ritson  and  others  who  quote  or  refer  to  verses  speak  so 
familiarly  ?  Over  this  name  the  second  version  in  Benedict  has 
the  word  "Host"  printed,  with  a  point  of  interrogation,  as  if  in- 
tended for  a  gloss.  But  the  most  remarkable  circumstance  of  all 
is,  that  there  is  no  ground  at  all  for  supposing,  as  is  done  by  Ritson 
and  Sir  Frederic  Madden,  that  the  verses  were  ever  inscribed  or 
set  up  upon  any  house  at  "  Here  "  or  elsewhere.  What  is  said 
ooth  hy  Benedict  and  Hoveden  (who  employ  nearly  the  same 
tt  oros)  iS  simply  that  the  figure  of  a  hart  was  set  upon  the  pinna- 


198  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

cle  of  the  house,  in  order,  as  was  believed,  that  the  prophecy  con- 
tained in  the  verses  might  be  accomphshed,  —  which  prophecy,  we 
are  told  immediately  before,  had  been  found  engraven  in  ancient 
characters  upon  stone  tables  in  the  neighborhood  of 'the  place.  It 
is  clearly  intended  to  be  stated  that  the  prophecy  was  much  older 
than  the  building  of  the  house,  and  the  erection  of  the  figure  of  a 
stag,  in  the  year  1190.  This  is  sufficiently  conveyed  in  Ritson's 
own  translation.  What  he  means,  therefore,  by  saying,  "  As  the 
inscription  was  set  up  when  the  house  was  biiilt,  before  the  death 
of  Henry  the  Second,  in  1189,"  is  not  obvious.  Benedict  says 
that  the  house  was  built  by  Ranulfus,  or  Ralph  (not  "  Randal," 
as  Ritson  translates  it)  Fitzstephen  (Ranulfo,  filio  Stephani)  ; 
Hoveden,  by  William  ;  which  latter  Ritson,  we  do  not  know  upon 
what  authority,  intimates  is  the  correct  name.  Both  chroniclers 
state  that  the  place,  which  was  a  royal  town  (yillam  regis  Anglice)^ 
had  been  given  to  Fitzstephen  by  King  Henry,  that  is,  proba- 
bly, Henry  II.,  as  Ritson  assumes ;  but  this,  we  repeat,  deter- 
mines nothing  as  to  the  age  of  j^he  verses,  which  were,  or  were 
supposed  to  be,  of  much  earlier  date  than  either  the  erection  of 
tlie  house  or  the  grant  of  the  property. 


THE   BRUT   OF   LAYAMON. 

Layamon,  or,  as  he  is  also  called,  Laweman,  —  for  the  old  char- 
acter represented  in  this  instance  by  our  modem  y  is  really  only 
a  guttural  (and  by  no  means  either  a  j  or  a  z,  by  which  it  is  some- 
times rendered),  —  tells  us  himself  that  he  was  a  priest,  and  that 
he  resided  at  Ernley,  near  Radstone,  or  Redstone,  which  appears 
to  have  been  what  is  now  called  Arley  Regis,  or  Lower  Arley,  on 
the  western  bank  of  the  Severn,  in  Worcestershire.  He  seems  to 
say  that  he  was  employed  in  the  services  of  the  church  at  that 
place  :  —  "  ther  he  bock  radde  "  (there  he  book  read).  And  the 
f)nly  additional  information  that  he  gives  us  respecting  himself  is, 
that  his  father's  name  was  Leovenath  (or  Leuca,  as  it  is  given  in 
the  later  of  the  two  texts). 

His  Brut,  or  Chronicle  of  Britain  (from  the  arrival  of  Brutus  to 
fhe  dcatli  of  King  Cadwalader  in  a.  d.  689),  is  in  the  main,  though 


THE   BRUT  OF  LAYAMON.  199 

with  many  additions,  a  translation  of  the  French  Brut  d'Angleterre 
of  Wace,  which  is  itself,  as  has  been  stated  above,  a  translation, 
also  with  considerable  additions  from  other  sources,  of  GeoflEi'ey  of 
Monmouth's  Latin  Historia  Britonum,  which  again  professes,  and 
probably  with  truth,  to  be  translated  from  a  Welsh  or  Breton 
original.  So  that  the  genealogy  of  the  four  versions  or  forms  of 
the  narrative  is :  —  first,  a  Celtic  original,  believed  to  be  now  lost ; 
secondly,  the  Latin  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth ;  thirdly,  the  French 
of  Wace  ;  fourthly,  the  English  of  Layamon.  The  Celtic  or 
British  version  is  of  unknown  date ;  the  Latin  is  of  the  earlier,  the 
French  of  the  latter,  half  of  the  twelfth  century;  and  that  of 
Layamon  would  appear  to  have  been  completed  in  the  first  years 
of  the  thirteenth.  We  shall  encounter  a  second  English  translation 
from  Wace's  French  before  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth. 

The  existence  of  Layamon's  Chronicle  had  long  been  known, 
but  it  had  attracted  very  little  attention  till  comparatively  recent 
times.  It  is  merely  mentioned  even  by  Warton  and  Tyrwhitt,  — 
the  latter  only  remarking  (in  his  Essay  on  the  Language  and  Ver- 
sification of  Chaucer),  that,  "  though  the  greatest  part  of  this  work 
of  Layamon  resembles  the  old  Saxon  poetry,  without  rhyme  or 
metre,  yet  he  often  intermixes  a  number  of  short  verses  of  unequal 
lengths,  but  rhyming  together  pretty  exactly,  and  in  some  places 
he  has  imitated  not  unsuccessfully  the  regular  octosyllabic  measure 
of  his  French  original."  George  Ellis,  in  his  Specimens  of  the 
Early  English  Poets,  originally  published  in  1790,  was,  we  believe, 
the  first  to  introduce  Layamon  to  the  general  reader,  by  giving  an 
extract  of  considerable  length,  with  explanatory  annotations,  from 
what  he  described  as  his  "very  curious  work,"  which,  he  added, 
never  had  been,  and  probably  never  would  be,  printed.  Subse- 
quently another  considerable  specimen,  in  every  way  much  more 
carefully  and  learnedly  edited,  and  accompanied  with  a  literal 
translation  throughout  into  the  modern  idiom,  was  presented  by  Mr. 
Guest  in  his  History  of  EngHsh  Rhythms,  1838  ii.  (113-123).'  But 
now  the  whole  work  has  been  edited  by  Sir  Frederic  Madden,  for 
the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  London,  in  three  volumes  8vo.,  1847. 
This  splendid  publication,  besides  a  Literal  Translation,  Notes,  and 
a  Grammatical  Glossary,  contains  the  Brut  in  two  texts,  separated 
from  each  other  by  an  interval  apparently  of  about  half  a  century, 
and,  whether  regarded  in  reference  to  the  philological,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  historical,  value  and  importance  of  Layamon's  work,  or  to 


200  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  admirable  and  altogether  satisfactory  manner  in  which  the  old 
chronicle  is  exhibited  and  illustrated,  may  fairly  be  characterized  as 
by  far  the  most  acce])table  present  that  has  been  made  to  the  stu- 
dents of  early  English  literature  in  our  day. 

His  editor  conceives  that  we  may  safely  assume  Layamon's  Eng- 
lish to  be  that  of  North  Worcestershire,  the  district  in  which  he 
lived  and  wrote.  But  this  western  dialect,  he  contends,  was  also 
that  of  the  southern  part  of  the  island,  having  in  fact  originated  to 
the  south  of  the  Thames,  whence,  he  says,  it  gradually  extended 
itself  "  as  far  as  the  courses  of  the  Severn,  the  Wye,  the  Tame, 
and  the  Avon,  and  more  or  less  pervaded  the  counties  of  Glouces- 
tershire, Worcestershire,  Herefordsliire,  Warwickshire,  and  Oxford- 
shire,"—  besides  prevailing  "  throughout  the  channel  counties  fi-om 
east  to  west," — notwithstanding  that  several  of  the  counties  that 
have  been  named,  and  that  of  Worcester  especially,  had  belonged 
especially  to  the  non-Saxon  kingdom  of  Mercia.  "  The  language  of 
Layamon,"  he  further  holds,  "belongs  to  that  transition  period  in 
which  the  groundwork  of  Anglo-Saxon  phraseology  and  grammar 
still  existed,  although  gradually  yielding  to  the  influence  of  the 
popular  forms  of  speech.  We  find  in  it,  as  in  the  later  portion  of 
the  Saxon  Chronicle,  marked  indications  of  a  tendency  to  adopt 
those  terminations  and  sounds  which  characterize  a  language  in  a 
state  of  change,  and  which  are  apparent  also  ua  some  other  branches 
of  the  Teutonic  tongue."  As  showing  "  the  progress  made  in  the 
cotirse  of  two  centuries  in  dejmrting  ffom  the  ancient  and  purer 
grammatical  foi'ms,  as  found  in  Anglo-Saxon  manuscripts,"  he 
mentions  "  the  use  of  a  as  an  article  ;  —  the  change  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  terminations  a  and  an  into  e  and  ew,  as  Avell  as  the  disregard 
of  inflexions  and  genders ;  —  the  masculine  forms  given  to  neuter 
nouns  in  the  plural ;  —  the  neglect  of  the  feminine  terminations  of 
adjectives  and  pronouns,  and  confusion  between  the  definite  and 
indefinite  declensions  ;  —  the  introduction  of  the  preposition  to 
l)efore  infinitives,  and  occasional  use  of  weak  preterites  of  verbs 
and  partici])les  instead  of  strong  ;  —  the  constant  occurrence  of  en 
for  on  in  the  plurals  of  verbs,  and  frequent  elision  of  the  final  e\  — 
Joactlicr  with  the  uncertainty  in  the  rule  for  the  government  of 
|)r('])ositi()ns."  In  the  earlier  text  one  of  the  most  striking  pecu- 
liarities is  what  has  been  temied  the  mamation,  defined  by  Sir 
Frederic  as  "  consisting  of  the  addition  of  a  final  n  to  certain  cases 
of  nouns  and  adje^^tives,  to  some  tenses  of  verbs,  and  to  several 


THE    BRUT    OF    LAYAMON.  201 

other  parts  of  speech."  The  western  dialect,  of  which  botli  texts, 
and  especially  the  earlier,  exhibit  strong  marks,  is  fui'ther  described 
as  perceptible  in  the"  "  termmation  of  the  present  tense  plural  in  tJi^ 
and  infinitives  in  i,  ie,  or  ?/ ;  the  forms  of  the  plural  personal  pro- 
nouns, heo,  heore,  heom ;  the  frequent  occurrence  of  the  prefix  i 
before  past  participles;  the  use  of  v  for/";  and  prevalence  of  the 
vowel  u  for  i  or  y,  in  such  words  as  dude,  hudde,  hulle,  putte,  hure^ 
&c."  "  But,"  it  is  added,  "  on  comparing  the  two  texts  carefally 
together,  some  remarkable  variations  are  apparent  in  the  later, 
which  seem  to  arise,  not  from  its  having  been  composed  at  a  more 
recent  period,  but  from  the  infusion  of  an  Anglian  or  Northern 
element  into  the  dialect."  From  these  indications  the  learned 
editor  is  chsposed  to  think  that  the  later  text  "  may  have  been 
composed  or  transcribed  in  one  of  the  counties  conterminous  to  the 
Anglian  border,"  and  he  suggests  that  "perhaps  we  might  fix  on 
the  eastern  side  of  Leicestershire  as  the  locality." 

One  thing  in  the  English  of  Layamon  that  is  eminently  deserv- 
ing of  notice  with  reference  to  the  history  of  the  language  is  the 
very  small  amount  of  the  French  or  Latin  element  that  is  found 
in  it.  "  The  fact  itself,"  Sir  F.  Madden  observes,  "  of  a  transla- 
tion of  Wace's  poem  by  a  priest  of  one  of  the  midland  counties  is 
sufficient  evidence  how  widely  the  knowledge  of  the  writings  of 
the  trouveres  was  dispersed,  and  it  would  appear  a  natural  conse- 
quence, that  not  only  the  outward  form  of  the  Anglo-Norman 
versification,  but  also  that  many  of  the  terms  used  in  the  original 
would  be  borrowed.  This,  however,  is  but  true  in  a  very  trifling 
degree,  compared  with  the  extent  of  the  work ;  for,  if  we  number 
the  words  derived  from  the  French  (even  including  some  that  may 
have  come  directly  from  the  Latin),  we  do  not  find  in  the  earher 
text  of  Layamon's  poem  so  many  as  fifty,  several  of  which  were 
in  usage,  as  appears  by  the  Saxon  Chronicle,  previous  to  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century.  Of  this  number  the  later  text  retains 
about  thirty,  and  adds  to  them  rather  more  than  forty  which  are 
not  found  in  the  earlier  version ;  so  that,  if  we  reckon  ninety  words 
of  French  origin  in  both  texts,  containing  together  more  than 
66,800  lines,  we  shall  be  able  to  form  a  tolerably  correct  estimate 
how  little  the  English  language  was  really  affected  by  foreign  con- 
verse, even  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century."  ^ 

Layamon's  poem  extends  to  nearly  32,250  lines,  or  more  than 

^  Preface,  xxiii. 
VOL.  I.  26 


202  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

double  the  length  of  Wace's  Brut.  This  may  indicate  the  amount 
of  the  additions  which  the  English  Chronicler  has  made  to  his 
French  original.  That,  however,  is  only  one,  though  the  chief, 
of  several  preceding  works  to  which  he  professes  himself  to  have 
been  mdebted.     His  own  account  is  :  — 

He  nom  tha  Englisca  boc 

Tha  makede  Semt  Beda ; 

An  other  he  nom  on  Latin, 

Tha  makede  Seinte  Albin, 

And  the  feire  Austin, 

The  fuUuht  broute  hider  in. 

Boc  he  nom  the  thridde, 

Leide  ther  amidden, 

Tha  makede  a  Frenchis  clerc, 

Wace  was  ihoten, 

The  wel  conthe  writen, 

And  he  hoe  yef  thare  aethelen 

Aelienor,  the  wes  Henries  quene, 

Thes  heyes  kinges. 

Layamon  leide  theos  boc, 

And  tha  leaf  wende. 

He  heom  leofliche  bi-heold  ; 

Lithe  him  beo  Drihten. 

Fetheren  he  nom  mid  fingren, 

And  fiede  on  boc-felle, 

And  tha  sothe  word 

Sette  to-gathere, 

And  tha  thre  boc 

Thrumde  to  ana. 


That  is,  lite  rail  V 


He  took  the  English  book 
That  Saint  Bede  made  ; 
Another  he  took  in  Latin, 
That  Saint  Albin  made, 
And  the  fair  Austin, 
That  baptism  brought  hither  in. 
The  tliird  book  he  took, 
[And]  laid  there  in  midst. 
That  made  a  French  clerk, 
Wace  was  [he]  called. 
That  well  could  write. 


THE   BRUT   OF   LAYAMON.  20S 

And  he  it  gave  to  the  noble 

Eleanor,  that  was  Henry's  queen, 

The  high  king's. 

Layamon  laid  [before  him]  these  books, 

And  the  leaves  turned. 

He  them  lovingly  beheld  ; 

Merciful  to  him  be  [the]  Lord. 

Feather  (pen)  he  took  with  fingers, 

And  wrote  on  book-skin, 

And  the  true  words 

Set  together, 

And  the  three  books 

Compressed  into  one. 

His  English  book  was  no  doubt  the  translation  into  the  vernacu- 
lar tongue,  commonly  attributed  to  King  Alfred,  of  Bede's  Ecclesi- 
astical History,  which  Layamon  does  not  seem  to  have  known  to 
have  been  originally  written  in  Latin.  What  he  says  about  his 
Latin  book  is  unintelligible.  St.  Austin  died  in  a.  d.  604 ;  and  the 
only  Albin  of  whom  anything  is  known  was  Albin  abbot  of  St. 
Austin's  at  Canterbury,  who  is  mentioned  by  Bede  as  one  of  the 
persons  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  assistance  in  the  compilation 
of  his  History ;  but  he  lived  more  than  a  century  after  St.  Austin 
(or  Augustine).  Some  Latin  chronicle,  however,  Layamon  evi- 
dently had  ;  and  his  scholarship,  therefore,  extended  to  an  acquaint- 
ance with  two  other  tongues  in  addition  to  the  now  obsolete  classic 
form  of  his  own. 

The  principal,  and  indeed  almost  the  only,  passage  in  Layamon's 
poem  from  which  any  inference  can  be  drawn  as  to  the  precise  time 
when  it  was  written,  is  one  near  the  end  (p.  31,  979-80)  in  which, 
speaking  of  the  tax  called  Rome-feoh,  Rome-scot,  or  Peter-pence, 
he  seems  to  express  a  doubt  whether  it  will  much  longer  continue 
to  be  paid  — 

Drihte  wat  hu  longe 

Theo  lagen  scullen  ilaeste 

(The  Lord  knows  how  long 

The  law  shall  last). 

This  his  learned  editor  conceives  to  allude  to  a  resistance  which  it 
appears  was  made  to  the  collection  of  the  tax  by  King  John  and 
the  nobility  in  the  year  1205 ;  and  that  supposition,  he  further  sug- 
gests, may  be  held  to  be  fortified  by  the  manner  in  which  Queen 


204  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Eleanor,  who  had  retired  to  Aquitalne  on  the  accession  of  John, 
and  died  abroad  at  an  advanced  age  in  1204,  is  spoken  of  in  the 
passage  quoted  above  from  what  we  may  call  the  Preface,  WTitten, 
no  doubt,  after  the  work  was  finished  —  "  Aelienor,  the  wes  Hen- 
ries queue." 

"  The  structure  of  Layamon's  poem,"  Sir  Frederic  observes, 
"consists  partly  of  lines  in  which  the  alliterative  system  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons  is  preserved,  and  partly  of  couplets  of  unequal  length 
rhiming  together.  Many  couplets,  indeed,  occur  which  have  both 
of  these  forms,  whilst  others  are  often  met  with  which  possess 
neither.  The  latter,  therefore,  must  have  depended  wholly  on 
accentuation,  or  have  been  corrupted  in  transcription.  The  rela- 
tive proportion  of  each  of  these  forms  is  not  to  be  ascertained  with- 
out extreme  difficulty,  since  the  author  uses  them  everywhere 
intermixed,  and  slides  fi'om  alliteration  to  rhime,  or  from  rhime  to 
■  alliteration,  in  a  manner  perfectly  arbitrary.  The  alliterative  por- 
tion, however,  predominates  on  the  Avhole  greatly  over  the  lines 
rhiming  together,  even  including  the  imperfect  or  assonant  termi- 
nations, which  are  very  frequent."  Mr.  Guest,  Sir  Frederic  notes, 
has  shown  by  the  specimen  which  he  has  given  with  the  accents 
marked  in  his  English  Rhythms  (ii.  114-124),  "  that  the  rhiming 
couplets  of  Layamon  are  founded  on  the  models  of  accentuated 
Anglo-Saxon  rhythms  of  four,  five,  six,  or  seven  accents." 

Layamon's  poetical  merit,  and  also  his  value  as  an  original  au- 
thority, are  rated  rather  high  by  his  editor.  His  additions  to  and 
amplifications  of  Wace,  we  are  told,  consist  in  the  earlier  part  of 
the  work  "  principally  of  the  speeches  placed  in  the  mouths  of  dif- 
ferent personages,  which  are  often  given  with  quite  a  dramatic 
effect."  "  The  text  of  Wace,"  it  is  added,  "  is  enlarged  through- 
out, and  in  many  passages  to  such  an  extent,  particularly  after  the 
birth  of  Arthur,  that  one  line  is  dilated  into  twenty;  names  of 
persons  and  localities  are  constantly  supplied,  and  not  unfi*equently 
interpolations  occur  of  entirely  new  matter,  to  the  extent  of  more 
than  an  hundred  lines.  Layamon  often  embellishes  and  improves 
on  his  copy ;  and  the  meagre  narrative  of  the  French  poet  is  height- 
ened by  gra])hic  touches  and  details,  which  give  him  a  just  claim 
to  be  considered,  not  as  a  mere  translator,  but  as  an  original 
writer." 

"  It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance,"  Sir  Frederic  afterwards  re- 
marks, "  that  we  find  preserved  in  many  passages  of  Layamon's 


THE   BRUT   OF  LAYAMON.  205 

poem  the  spirit  and  style  of  the  earher  Anglo-Saxon  writers.  No 
one  can  read  his  descriptions  of  battles  and  scenes  of  strife  with- 
out being  reminded  of  the  Ode  on  Athelstan's  victory  at  Brunan- 
burh.  The  ancient  mythological  genders  of  the  sun  and  moon  are 
still  unchanged  ;  the  memory  of  the  Witena-gemot  has  not  yet  lie- 
come  extinct ;  and  the  neigh  of  the  haengest  still  seems  to  resound 
in  our  eai's.  Very  many  phrases  are  purely  Anglo-Saxon,  and, 
with  slight  chano-e,  might  have  been  used  in  Csedmon  or  jElfric. 
A  foreign  scholar  and  poet,  versed  both  in  Anglo-Saxon  and  Scan- 
dinavian literature,  has  declared,  that,  tolerably  well  read  as  he  is 
in  the  rhiming  chronicles  of  his  own  country,  and  of  others,  he  has 
found  Layamon's  beyond  comparison  the  most  lofty  and  animated 
in  its  style,  at  every  moment  reminding  the  reader  of  the  splendid 
phraseology  of  Anglo-Saxon  verse."  This  is  the  Rev.  N.  F.  S. 
Grundtvig,  of  Copenhagen,  in  a  prospectus  which  he  put  forth  in 
1830,  containing  proposals  for  publishing  Layamon  and  other  an- 
cient English  Avorks. 

We  cannot  do  Jbetter  than  give  as  our  specimen  of  Layamon's 
poetry  King  Arthur's  account  of  his  dream,  to  which  both  Sir 
Frederic  Madden  and  Sharon  Turner  have  called  attention.  "  The 
dream  of  Arthur  as  related  by  himself  to  his  companions  in  arms," 
Sir  Frederic  observes,  "  is  the  creation  of  a  mind  of  a  higher  order 
than  is  apparent  in  the  creeping  rhimes  of  more  recent  chroni 
clers."     It  runs  thus  :  — 

To  niht  a  mine  slepe, 

[To  night  in  my  sleep] 
Ther  ich  laei  on  bure, 

[Where  T  lay  in  bower  (chamber)] 
Me  imaette  a  sweuen  ; 

[I  dreamt  1  a  dream] 
Ther  uore  ich  ful  sari  aem. 

[Therefore  I  full  sorry  am] 
Me  imette  that  men  me  hof 

[I  dreamt'-^  that  men  raised  me] 
Uppen  are  halle. 

[Upon  a  hall] 
Tha  halle  ich  gon  bestriden, 

[The  hall  I  gan  bestride] 
Swulc  ich  wolde  riden 

[So  as  I  would  ride] 

'  Rather,  There  met  me,  there  occurred  to  me  ?  ''It  occurred  to  me  I 


206  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Alle  tha  lond  tha  ich  ah 

[All  the  land  that  I  owned]  ' 

AUe  ich  ther  ouer  sah. 

[All  I  there  over-saw] 
And  Walwain  sat  biuoren  me  ; 

[And  Walwain  sat  before  me] 
Mi  sweord  he  bar  an  honde 

[My  sword  he  bare  in  hand]. 
Tha  com  Moddred  faren  ther 

[Then  came  Modred  to  fare  (go)  there] 
Mid  unimete  uolke. 

[With  unmeasured  (unnumbered)  folk] 
He  bar  an  his  honde 

[He  bare  in  his  hand] 
Ane  wiax  stronge. 

[An  axe  strong] 
He  bigon  to  hewene 

[He  began  to  hew] 
Hardliche  swithe, 

[Hardly  exceedingly] 
And  tha  postes  for-heou  alle 

[And  the  posts  thoroughly- hewed  all] 
Tha  heolden  up  the  halle. 

[That  held  up  the  hall] 
Ther  ich  isey  Wenheuer  eke, 

[There  I  saw  Wenhcver  (Guinever,  the  Queen)  eke] 
Wimmonen  leofuest  me : 

[Of  women  loveliest  to  me] 
Al  there  muche  halle  rof 

[All  the  great  (mickle)  hall  roof] 
Mid  hire  honden  heo  to-droh. 

[With  her  hands  she  drew  (down')'] 
Tha  halle  gon  to  haelden, 

[The  hall  gan  to  timible] 
And  ich  hacld  to  gnmden, 

[And  I  tumbled  to  ground] 
That  mi  riht  aerm  to-brac. 

[That  my  right  arm  broke] 
Tha  seide  Modred,  Haue  that ! 

[Then  said  JModred,  Have  that] 
Adun  ueol  tha  halle 

[Adown  fell  the  hall] 
And  Walwain  gon  to  ualle, 

[And  Walwain  gan  to  fall] 
And  feol  a  there  eorthe  ; 

[And  fell  on  the  earth] 


THE   BRUT   OF   LAYAMON.  20" 

His  aermes  brekeen  beine. 

[His  arms  brake  both] 
And  ich  igrap  mi  sweord  leofe 

[And  I  grasped  my  dear  sword] 
Mid  mire  leoft  honde, 
[With  my  left  hand] 
And  smaet  of  Modred  is  haft, 

[And  smote  off  Modred  his  head] 
That  hit  wond  a  thene  ueld  ; 

[That  it  rolled  (wended)  on  the  field] 
And  tha  quene  ich  al  to-snathde, 

[And  the  queen  I  all  cut  to  pieces  (snedded)] 
Mid  deore  mine  sweorde, 

[With  my  dear  sword] 
And  seodthen  ich  heo  adun  sette 

[And  then  I  her  adown  set] 
In  ane  swarte  putte. 

[In  a  black  pit] 
And  al  mi  uolc  riche 

[And  all  my  rich  (great)  people] 
Sette  to  fleme, 
[Set  to  flight] 
That  nuste  ich  under  Crista 

[That  I  wist  not  und«r  Christ] 
Whar  heo  bicomen  weoren. 

[Where  they  were  become  (gone)] 
Buten  mi  seolf  ich  gond  atstonden 

[But  myself  I  gan  stand] 
Uppen  ane  wolden 

[Upon  a  wold  (or  weald)] 
And  ich  ther  wondrien  agon 

[And  I  there  gan  to  wander] 
Wide  yeond  than  moren. 

[Wide  over  the  moors] 
Ther  ich  isah  gi'ipes 

[There  I  saw  gi-ipes  (griffons)] 
And  grisliche  fugheles. 

[And  grisly  fowls  (birds)] 
Tha  com  an  guldene  leo 

[Then  came  a  golden  hon] 
Lithen  oner  dune. 

[To  glide  over  the  down] 
Deoren  swithe  hende, 

[A  beast  (deer)  very  handsomej 
Tha  ure  Drihten  make. 
[That  our  Lord  made] 


208  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Tha  leo  me  orn  foren  to, 

[The  linn  ran  forward  to  me] 
And  iueng  me  bi  than  midle, 

[And  took  mo  by  the  middle] 
And  forth  hire  gun  yeongen 

[And  forth  herself  gan  move] 
And  to  there  sae  wende. 

[And  to  the  sea  went] 
And  ich  isaeh  thae  vthen 

[And  I  saw  the  waves] 
I  there  sae  driuen  ; 

[In  the  sea  drive] 
And  the  leo  i  than  ulode 

[And  the  Hon  in  the  flood] 
Iwende  with  me  seolue. 

[Went  Avith  myself] 
Tha  wit  i  sae  comen, 

[When  we  in  sea  came] 
Tha  vthen  me  hire  binoraen. 

[The  waves  from  me  her  took] 
Com  ther  an  fisc  lithe, 

[Came  there  a  fish  to  glide]  1 
And  fereden  me  to  londe. 

[And  brought  me  to  land] 
Tha  wes  ich  al  wet, 

[Then  was  I  all  wet] 
And  weri  of  soryen,  and  seoc. 

[And  weary  from  sorrow,  and  sick] 
Tha  gon  ich  iwakien 

[AVhen  I  gan  to  awake] 
Scathe  ich  gon  to  qnakien  ; 

[Greatly  I  gan  to  (juake] 
Tha  gon  ich  to  binien 

[Then  gan  I  to  trc'ml)le] 
Swiile  ich  al  fur  burne. 

[As  if  I  all  ivith  fire  burned] 
And  swa  ich  habbe  al  niht 

[And  so  I  have  all  night] 
Of  mine  sweuene  swithe  ithoht ; 

[Of  my  dream  much  thought] 
For  ich  what  to  iwisse 

[For  I  wot  to  certainty] 

1  Tliat  is,  A  fish  approached.  Unless  we  should  understand  lithe  to  be  an 
ispitliet  of  the  fish.  But  the  later  text,  "  Com  thar  a  fisc  swemrae  "  is  against 
that. 


THE  BRUT   OF   LAYA^ION.  209 

Agan  is  al  mi  blisse  ; 

[Agone  is  all  my  bliss] 
For  a  to  mine  liue 

[For  aye  to  (throughout)  my  life] 
Soryen  icli  mot  driye. 

[Sorrow  I  must  endure] 
Wale  that  ich  nabbe  here 

[Welaway  (alas)  that  I  have  not  here] 
Wenhauer  mine  quene ! 

[Wcnhaver,  my  queen]. 

28014-28093. 

Here  is  evidently  a  considerable  amount  of  true  poetic  life  in 
the  conception,  and  also,  as  far  as  the  apparent  rudeness  of  the  lan- 
guage will  admit, — if  we  ought  not  perhaps  rather  to  say  as  far 
as  the  imperfect  knowledge  of  its  laws  now  attainable  enables  us  to 
form  a  judgment,  —  considerable  care  and  aptness  of  expression. 
The  conclusion  of  the  address,  in  particular,  is  worked  up  to  no 
contemptible  height  of  artistic  elegance,  as  well  as  pathos.  Let 
the  strange  antiquated  spelling  only  be  regulated  according  to  the 
system  with  which  we  are  all  at  present  familiar,  and,  if  we  will 
accept  such  rhymes  as  night  and  thought^  here  and  queen,  —  and 
also  sometimes,  perhaps,  consent  to  be  satisfied  without  rhyme  at 
all  in  consideration  of  certain  alliterative  artifices,  the  beauty  of 
which,  it  must  be  confessed,  has  now  become  of  somewhat  difficult 
appreciation,  — we  shall  not  find  it  deficient  in  harmony,  any  more 
than  in  a  graceful  and  expressive  simplicity  of  diction  :  — 

And  sway  I  hab  all  night 

Of  min-e  sweeven  swythe  ythought; 

For  I  wot  to  ywiss 

Agone  is  all  my  bliss  ; 

For  aye  to  min-e  fiv-e 

Sorien  I  mote  dri-e. 

Wail-e  !  that  I  nab  here 

Wenhavere  min-e  queen ! 

This  will  represent  pretty  nearly  the  manner  in  which  the  lines 
would  probably  be  read  by  Layamon  and  his  contemporaries. 

The  philological  interest  and  importance  of  this  work  of  Laya- 
mon's  are  greatly  enhanced  by  the  fortunate  circumstance  of  its 
having  come  down  to  us  in  two  texts,  the  one  evidently  somewhat 

VOL.   I.  27 


210  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

more  recent  tliaii  tlie  other.  Both  have  been  most  judiciously 
given  by  Sir  Frederic  Madden,  —  to  whom,  indeed,  we  may  be 
said  to  be  chiefly  indebted  for  the  preservation  of  the  latter  one, 
the  manuscript  cmtaining  which  was  so  greatly  injured  by  the 
deplorable  fire  that  was  allowed  to  seize  upon  the  Cottonian  Col- 
lection in  the  early  part  of  last  century  as  to  be  regarded  as  having 
been  rendered  almost  entirely  illegible  and  useless  till  he  took  the 
reparation  of  its  fragments  in  hand,  and  had  them  bound  and  inlaid, 
after  they  had  been  collected  and  partially  restored,  about  the  year 
1827,  under  the  superintendence  of  the  Rev.  J.  Forshall,  his  prede- 
cessor as  keeper  of  the  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum.  Of  about 
27,000  lines  of  which  this  second  edition,  as  it  may  be  called,-  is 
calculated  to  have  consisted  (for  it  is  slightly  condensed  fi'om  the 
first,)  not  quite  2400  are  supposed  to  be  wholly  lost,  and  only 
about  1000  more  are  in  a  partially  injured  state.  So  that,  of 
the  32,250  lines,  of  which  the  poem  in  its  more  extended  form 
consists,  we  have  still  betAveen  23,000  and  24,000  perfect  in  both 
editions,  —  an  amount  of  material  for  comparison  which  leaves  us 
hardly  anything  to  regret  in  the  loss  of  the  3000  or  4000  that 
have  perished.  Fortunately  the  earlier  edition  appears  to  be  com- 
plete. It  is  contained  in  the  Cott.  MS.  Caligula  A.  ix.,  the  hand- 
writing of  which  is  of  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  ; 
the  other  in  the  MS.  Otho  C.  xiii.,  the  handwriting  of  which  is 
supposed  to  be  of  the  latter  part  of  the  same  century.  The  first 
text  may  be  regarded  as  giving  us  probably  the  west  country  Eng- 
lish of  about  the  year  1200,  the  second  that  of  1250. 

The  later  text  for  the  most  part  follows  the  earlier  line  for  line, 
though  with  occasional  omissions  ;  the  differences  A\hich  it  exhibits 
are  confined  to  the  substitution  of  more  modern  forms  for  such 
vocables,  constructions,  and  modes  of  expression  as  had  gone  out 
of  use  or  of  fashion  since  the  poem  first  appeared.  Unfortunately 
the  manuscript  has  suffered  considerably  in  the  part  containing 
Arthur's  di'eam  ;  but  many  lines  are  still  entire.  The  first  six, 
for  instance,  stand  thus:  — 

To  niht  in  mine  bedde 
Thar  ich  lay  in  boure, 
Me  imette  a  sweuen  ; 
Tlinr  fore  ich  sori  hum. 
jNIe  mctte  that  men  me  sette 
Vppen  one  halle. 


THE   ORMULUM.  211 

Ajid  here  are  the  concludino;  six  lines ;  — 

For  ich  wot  al  mid  iwisse 
Agon  his  al  min  blisse  ; 
For  auere  to  mine  lifue 
Sox'ewe  ich  mot  drihe. 
Wele  that  ich  nadde  her 
Mine  cweane  Gwenayfer! 

It  ought  to  be  observed  that,  although  we  have  given  through- 
0  it  the  u  and  v  exactly  as  they  stand  in  the  printed  edition,  these 
a*'e  really  only  two  ways  of  writing  what  was  regarded  as  the 
snnie  letter,  and  that  in  both  texts  sometimes  the  u  is  to  be 
sounded  like  our  modern  v,  sometimes  the  v  like  our  modern  u. 
Thus,  siveuen  was  pronounced  sweverif  uore  vore^  vppen  uppen,  auere 
avere.  &c. 


THE   ORMULUM. 

Another  metrical  work  of  considerable  extent,  that  knoAvn  as 
the  Ormulum,  fi-om  Oi^m,  or  Ormin,  which  appears  to  have  been 
the  name  of  the  writer,  has  been  usually  assigned  to  the  same,  or 
nearly  the  same,  age  with  the  Brut  of  Layamon.  It  exists  only 
in  a  single  manuscript,  which  there  is  some  reason  for  believing  to 
be  the  author's  autograph,  now  preserved  in  the  Bodleian  Library 
among  the  books  bequeathed  by  the  great  scholar  Francis  Junius, 
who  appears  to  have  purchased  it  at  the  Hague  in  1659  at  the  sale 
of  the  books  of  his  deceased  friend  Janus  Ulitius,  or  Vlitius  (van 
Vliet),  also  an  eminent  philologist  and  book-collector.  It  is  a 
folio  volume,  consisting  of  ninety  parchment  leaves,  besides  twenty- 
nine  others  inserted,  upon  which  the  poetry  is  written  in  double 
columns,  in  a  stiff  but  distinct  hand,  and  without  division  into 
verses,  so  that  the  work  had  always  been  assumed  to  be  in  prose 
till  its  metrical  character  was  pointed  out  by  Tyrwhitt  in  his 
edition  of  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  1775.  Accordingly  n(j 
mention  is  made  of  it  by  Warton,  the  first  volume  of  whose  His- 
tory was  published  in  1774.  But  it  had  previously  been  referred 
to  by  Hickes  and  others  ;  and  it  has  attracted  a  large  share  of  the 
attention  of  all  recent  investigators  of  the  history  of  the  language. 


212  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  AND   LANGUAGE. 

It  has  now  been  printed  in  full,  under  the  title  of  The  Ormulum ; 
Now  first  edited  from  the  Original  Manuscript  in  the  Bodleian, 
with  Notes  and  a  Glossary,  by  Robert  Meadows  White,  D.  D.,  late 
Fellow  of  St.  Mary  Magdalene  College,  and  formerly  Professor  of 
Anglo-Saxon  in  the  University  of  Oxford  ;  2  vols.  8vo.  Oxford,  at 
the  University  Press,  1852. 

The  Ormulum  is  described  by  Dr.  White  as  being  "  a  series  of 
Homilies,  in  an  imperfect  state,  composed  in  metre  without  allitera- 
tion, and,  except  in  very  few  cases,  also  without  rhyme  ;  the  subject 
of  the  Homilies  being  supplied  by  those  portions  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament wdiich  were  read  in  the  daily  service  of  the  Church."  The 
plan  of  the  writer  is,  w^e  are  further  told,  ' '  first  to  give  a  para- 
])hrastic  version  of  the  Gospel  of  the  day,  adapting  the  matter  tc 
the  rules  of  his  verse,  with  such  verbal  additions  as  Avere  required 
for  that  purpose.  He  then  adds  an  exposition  of  the  subject  in 
its  doctrinal  and  practical  bearings,  in  the  treatment  of  which  he 
borrows  copiously  from  the  writings  of  St.  Augustine  and  ^Ifric, 
and  occasionally  from  those  of  Beda."  "  Some  idea,"  it  is  added, 
"  may  be  formed  of  the  extent  of  Ormin's  labors  when  we  con- 
sider that,  out  of  the  entire  series  of  Homilies,  provided  for  nearly 
the  whole  of  the  yearly  service,  nothing  is  left  beyond  the  text  of 
the  thirty-second."  We  have  still  nearly  ten  thousand  long  lines 
of  the  work,  or  nearly  twenty  thousand  as  Dr.  White  prints  them, 
with  the  fifteen  syllables  divided  into  two  sections,  the  one  of 
eight,  the  other  of  seven  syllables,  —  the  latter,  which  terminates 
in  an  unaccented  syllable,  being  prosodically  equivalent  to  one  of 
six,  so  that  the  whole  is  simply  our  still  common  alternation  of 
the  eight-syllabled  and  the  six-syllabled  line,  only  without  either 
rhyme  or  even  alliteration,  which  makes  it  as  pure  a  species  of 
blank  verse,  though  a  different  species,  as  that  which  is  now  in 
use. 

The  list  of  the  texts,  or  subjects  of  the  Homilies,  as  preserved 
in  the  manuscript,  extends  to  242,  and  it  appears  to  be  imperfect. 
Ormin  plainly  claims  to  have  completed  his  long  self-imposed  task. 
Here  is  the  bemnnino;  of  the  Dedication  to  his  brother  Walter 
which  stands  at  the  head  of  the  work :  — 

Nu,  brotherr  Walltcrr,  brothcrr  min 

[Now,  brother  Walter,  brother  mine] 
Aflflerr  the  flacshes  kinde  ; 

[After  the  flesh's  kind  (or  nature)] 


THE   ORMULUM.  213 

Annd  brotherr  min  i  Crisstenndom 

[And  brother  mine  in  Christendom  (or  Christ's  kingdom)] 
Thurrh  fuUuhht  and  thurrh  trowwthe  ; 
TThrough  baptism  and  through  truth] 
Annd  brotherr  min  i  Godess  bus, 

[And  brother  mine  in  God's  housis] 
Yet  o  the  thride  wise, 

[Yet  on  (in)  the  third  wise] 
Thurrh  thatt  witt  bafenn  takenn  ba 

[Though  that  we  two  have  taken  both] 
An  reghellboc  to  folghenn, 

[One  rule-book  to  follow] 
Unnderr  kanunnkess  had  and  lif, 

[Under  canonic's  (canon's)  rank  and  life] 
Swa  summ  Sannt  Awwstin  sette  ; 

[So  as  St.  Austin  set  (or  ruled)] 
Ice  hafe  don  swa  summ  tbu  badd 

[I  have  done  so  as  thou  bade] 
Annd  forthedd  te  thin  wille  ; 

[And  performed  thee  thine  will  (wish)] 
Ice  hafe  wennd  inntill  Ennglissh 

[I  have  wended  (turned)  into  English] 
Goddspelless  ballgbe  lare, 

[Gospel's  holy  lore] 
Affterr  thatt  little  witt  tatt  me 

[After  that  little  wit  that  me] 
Min  Drihhtin  hafethth  lenedd. 

[My  Lord  hath  lent] 
Thu  thohhtesst  tatt  itt  mihhte  well 

[Thou  thoughtest  that  it  might  Avell] 
Till  mickell  I'rame  turrnenn 

[To  mickle  (much)  profit  turn] 
Yiff  Ennglissh  follk,  forr  lufe  off  Crist, 

[If  English  folk  for  love  of  Christ]   • 
Itt  wollde  yerne  lernenn, 

[It  would  earnestly  learn] 
Annd  follghenn  itt,  and  fillenn  itt 

[And  follow  it,  and  fulfil  it] 
Withth  thohht,  withth  word,  withth  dede* 

[With  thought,  with  word,  with  deed] 
Annd  forrthi  gerrndesst  tu  thatt  ice 

[And  because  thou  desiredst  that  I] 
Thiss  werrc  the  shollde  wirrkenn  ; 

[This  work  thee  should  work] 
Annd  ice  itt  hafe  forthedd  te, 

[And  I  it  have  performed  thee] 


214  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Ace  all  thurrh  Cristess  hellpe ; 

[But  all  through  Christ's  help] 
Annd  unne  birrth  bathe  thannkenn  Crist 

[And  us  two  it  becomes  both  (to)  thank  Christy, 
Thatt  itt  iss  brohht  till  ende. 

[That  it  is  brought  to  end] 
Ice  bafe  sammned  o  thiss  boc 

[I  have  collected  on  (or  in)  this  book] 
Tha  Goddspelless  neh  alle 

[The  Gospels  nigh  all] 
Thatt  sinndenn  o  the  messeboc 

[That  are  on  (or  in)  the  mass-book] 
Inn  all  the  yer  att  messe. 

[In  all  the  year  at  mass] 
Annd  ayy  affterr  the  Goddspell  staunt 

[And  aye  after  the  Gospel  stands] 
Thatt  tatt  the  Goddspell  menethth 

[That  that  the  Gospel  meaneth] 
Thatt  mann  birrth  spellenn  to  the  folic 

[That  one  ought  (to)  declare  to  the  folk] 
Off  theyyre  sawle  nede  ; 

[Of  (or  for)  their  soul  (or  soul's)  need] 
Annd  yet  taer  tekenn  mare  inoh 

[And  yet  there  in  addition  more  enough] 
Thu  shallt  taeronne  findenn 

[Thou  shalt  thereon  (or  therein)  find] 
Off  thatt  tatt  Cristess  hallghe  thed 

[Of  that  that  Christ's  holy  people] 
Birrth  trowwenn  wel  and  folghenn. 

[Behove  (to)  beheve  well  and  follow] 
Ice  hafe  sett  her  o  thiss  boc 

[I  have  set  here  on  (or  in)  this  book] 
Amang  Goddspelless  wordess, 

[Among  (the)  Gospel's  words] 
All  thurrh  ine  sellfenn,  manig  word 

[All  through  myself  many  (a)  word] 
The  rime  swa  to  fillen  ; 

[The  rhyme  so  to  fill] 
Ace  thu  shallt  findenn  thatt  min  word 

[But  thou  shalt  find  that  my  word] 
Eyyvvhaer  thaer  itt  iss  ekedd 

[Everywhere  there  (or  where)  it  is  eked  (or  added)] 
Mayy  liellpenn  tha  thatt  redenn  itt 

[May  help  them  th.at  read  it] 
To  sen  and  tunnderrstanndenn 

[To  see  and  to  undei-stand] 


THE   ORMULUM.  215 

All  thess  te  bettre  hu  theyym  birrth 

[All  this  the  better  how  them  it  behoveth] 

The  Goddspel  unnderrstanndenn. 
[The  Gospel  (to)  understand] 

One  remarkable  feature  in  this  Englisli  is  evidently  something 
very  peculiar  in  the  spelling.  And  the  same  system  is  observed 
throughout  the  work.  It  is  found  on  a  slight  examination  to  con- 
sist in  the  duplication  of  the  consonant  whenever  it  follows  a  vowel 
liaving  any  other  than  the  sound  which  is  now  for  the  most  part 
indicated  by  the  annexation  of  a  silent  e  to  the  single  consonant, 
or  what  may  be  called  the  name  sound,  being  that  by  which  the 
vowel  is  commonly  named  or  spoken  of  in  our  modern  English. 
Thus  i^cine  would  by  Ormin  be  written  pan,  but  pan  pann  ;  mean 
meny  but  men  menn  ;  pine  pin,  but  pin  pinn  ;  own  on,  but  on  onn  ; 
tune  tun,  but  tun  tunn.  This,  as  Mr.  Guest  has  pointed  out,  is, 
after  all,  only  a  rigorous  carrying  out  of  a  principle  which  has 
always  been  applied  to  a  certain  extent  in  English  orthography,  — 
as  in  tally,  or  tall,  herry,  witty,  folly,  dull,  as  compared  with  tale, 
heei;  white,  lone,  mule.  The  effect,  however,  in  Ormin's  work  is  on 
a  hasty  inspection  to  make  his  English  seem  much  more  rude  and 
antique  than  it  really  is.  The  entry  of  the  MS.  in  the  catalogue 
of  Vliet's  library,  as  quoted  by  Dr.  White,  describes  it  as  an  old 
Swedish  or  Gothic  book.  Other  early  notices  speak  of  it  as  semi- 
Saxon,  or  half  Danish,  or  possibly  old  Scottish.  Even  Hickes 
appears  to  have  regarded  it  as  belonging  to  the  first  age  after  the 
Conquest. 

Ormin  attaches  the  highest  importance  to  his  peculiar  system  of 
orthography.  Nevertheless,  in  quoting  what  he  says  upon  the 
subject  in  the  subsequent  passage  of  his  Dedication  we  will  take 
the  liberty,  for  the  sake  of  giving  a  clear  and  just  idea  of  his  lan- 
guage to  a  reader  of  the  present  day,  to  strip  it  of  a  disguise  which 
so  greatly  exaggerates  its  apparent  antiquity :  — 

And  whase  willen  shall  this  book 

[And  whoso  shall  wish  this  book] 
Eft  other  sithe  writen, 

[After  (wards)  (an)  other  time  (to)  write] 
Him  bidde  ice  that  he't  write  right, 

[Him  bid  I  that  he  it  write  right] 
Swa  sum  this  book  him  teacheth, 

[So  as  this  book  him  teacheth] 


216  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

All  tliwert  out  after  that  it  is 

[All  athwart  (or  through)  out  after  that  (or  what)  it  is] 
Upo  this  firete  bisne. 

[Upon  this  first  example] 
With  all  suilk  rime  als  here  is  set 

[With  all  such  rhyme  as  here  is  set] 
With  all  se  tele  wordes 

[With  all  so  many  words] 
And  tat  he  looke  well  that  he 

[And  that  he  look  well  that  he] 
An  bookstafF  write  twies 

[A  letter  write  twice] 
Ey where  there  it  upo  this  book 

[Wherever  there  (or  where)  it  upon  this  book] 
Is  written  o  that  Avise. 

[Is  written  on  (or  in)  that  wise] 
Looke  he  well  that  he't  write  sway 

[Look  he  well  that  he  it  write  so] 
For  he  ne  may  nought  elles 

[For  he  may  not  else] 
On  English  writen  right  te  word, 

[On  (or  in)  English  write  right  the  word] 
That  wite  lie  well  to  soothe. 

[That  wot  (or  know)  he  well  to  (or  for)  sooth  (or  truth)] 

Thus  presented,  Omiiu's  English  certainly  seems  to  differ  much 
less  from  that  of  the  present  day  than  Layamon's.  His  vocabu- 
lary may  liave  as  little  in  it  of  any  foreign  admixture ;  but  it 
a])pears  to  contain  many  fewer  words  that  have  now  become  obso- 
lete ;  and  both  his  grammar  and  his  construction  have  much  more 
of  a  modern  character  and  air.  Dr.  White  has  not  thought  it 
necessary  to  subjoin  any  such  translation  to  his  author  as  Sii 
Frederic  Madden  rightly  judged  was  indispensable  in  the  case  of 
Layainon.  He  confesses,  also,  that,  while  the  liandwriting,  the 
ink,  and  the  material  of  the  manuscript  would  seem  to  assign  it  to 
the  earlier  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  "  the  grammatical  forms 
and  structure  of  the  language  rather  indicate  a  later  period." 
"  AVe  meet,"  he  says,  "  with  neglect  of  gender  and  number,  a 
fre([uent  use  of  prepositions  substituted  for  the  casal  endings  of 
nouns,  and   the   rejection  of  the  prefix  ge  in   all   those  parts  of 

speech  which  receive  it  in  piire  Anglo-Saxon There  is  also 

for  the   most  part  a  simj)licity  in  grannnatical  forms  and  in  the 
'.•(instruction  of  sentences."      Of  the  amount  of  any   French    or 


THE   ORMULUM.  217 

Latin  element  that  there  may  be  in  the  vocabulary  we  do  not  find 
that  he  says  anything.  But  it  is  evidently  very  small,  probably 
not  greater  than  we  have  found  it  to  be  in  Layamon's  work. 

The  Brut  of  Layamon  was  undoubtedly  written  in  the  south- 
west of  England  ;  the  dialect  of  the  Ormulum  is  thought  to  betray 
a  Scandinavian  character,  and  to  point  to  a  northeastern,  or  at 
least  an  eastern,  county  as  the  part  of  the  kingdom  in  which  and 
for  which  it  was  written.  Dr.  Latham  assigns  it  to  Nortlnimbi'ia. 
Mr.  Guest  is  "  inclined  to  fix  on  some  county  north  of  Tliames, 
and  south  of  Lincoln."  And  the  late  Mr.  Garnett,  Dr.  White 
tells  us,  expressed  his  opinion  in  a  letter  to  him  that  "  the  Ormu- 
lum was  written  a  hundred  miles  or  upwards  to  the  south  of 
Durham,  and  considered  Peterborough  not  an  unlikely  locality." 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  assumed  that,  while  we  have  a  dialect 
founded  on  that  of  the  Saxons  specially  so  called  in  Layamon,  we 
have  a  specially  Anglian  form  of  the  national  language  in  the  Or- 
mulum ;  and  perliaps  that  distinction  will  be  enough,  withoiit  suppos- 
ing any  considerable  difi^'erence  of  date,  to  explain  the  linguistic 
differences  between  the  two.  There  is  good  reason  for  believing 
that  the  Anglian  part  of  the  country  shook  tff  the  shackles  of  the 
old  inflectional  system  sooner  than  the  Saxon,  and  that  our  modern 
comparatively  uninflected  and  analytic  English  was  at  least  in  its 
earliest  stage  more  the  product  of  Anglian  than  of  purely  Saxon 
influences,  and  is  to  be  held  as  having  grown  up  ratlier  in  the 
northern  and  northeastern  parts  of  the  country  than  in  the  south 
ern  or  sovithwestern.^ 


1  Ormin's  ortliography,  if  minutely  examined,  might  probably  be  made  to  throw 
considerable  light  upon  the  i)ronunciation  of  our  ancestors.  From  the  short  ex- 
tract given  above,  for  example,  the  following  inferences,  among  others,  might  be  de- 
duced :  —  The  name  Christ  and  the  commencing  syllable  of  Christendom  would  api)ear 
to  have  been  when  the  Ormulum  was  composed  distinguished  in  pronunciation  in 
the  same  manner  as  they  still  are,  the  former  taking  the  long  or  name  sound  of  the 
vowel,  the  latter  the  short  or  sliut  sound.  Tlie  case  is  different,  however,  so  far  as 
the  evidence  of  this  passage  goes,  with  the  name  God  and  the  commencing  syllable 
of  the  word  Gospel,  which  also  then  took  a  d;  while  tlie  o  of  Gospel  (or  Godspel) 
was  undoubtedly  pronounced,  as  it  still  is,  with  the  short  sound,  the  a  of  Goo?  would 
appear,  at  least  according  to  one  mode  of  speaking,  to  have  taken  the  name  sound, 
go  that  the  word  would  be  pronounced  exactly  as  we  now  pronounce  the  word  godd. 
So  in  the  present  day  many  people  distinguish  the  proper  name  Job  by  giving  the  o 
the  name  sound  as  in  robe.  This  pronunciation  is  the  more  deserving  of  notice,  as 
being  in  accordance  with  oth  2r  evidence  opposed  to  the  common  notion  of  there 
being  any  connection  between  God  and  the  adjective  f/ood  (which  is  the  God  of  Gos- 
vel,  or  Godspel,  =  the  good  tidings,  or  evayyiAwv).    In  the  English  of  the  period  before 

VOL.  I.  28 


218  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


THE   ANCREN   RIWLE. 

There  is  also  to  be  mentioned,  along  Avith  the  Brut  of  Layamon 
and  the  Ormulum,  a  work  of  considerable  extent  in  prose  which 
has  been  assigned  to  the  same  interesting  period  in  the  history  of 
the  lancniaiie,  the  Ancren  Riwle,  that  is,  the  Anchorites',  or  rather 
Anchoresses'  Rule,  being  a  treatise  on  the  duties  of  the  monastic 
life,  written  evidently  by  an  ecclesiastic,  and  probably  one  in  a 

the  Conquest  the  two  words  were  always  distinguished  by  the  adjective  being  writ- 
ten with  an  accent,  god ;  but,  the  vowel  being  the  same  in  both,  this  can  hardly  be 
taken  to  indicate  the  same  distinction  which  we  now  make  between  God  and  c/ood. 
In  other  passages  of  the  Orrauhim,  however,  we  have  the  sacred  name  also  writ- 
ten witli  the  double  d,  which  would  seem  to  show  that  the  present  pronunciation 
was  already  beginning  to  drive  out  the  other  older  one.  But  this  instance  must  be 
held  to  make  it  somewhat  questionable  whether,  in  what  is  called  the  Anglo-Saxon 
form  of  the  language,  the  accent,  at  least  universally,  is  to  be  taken  to  indicate  that 
the  vowel  over  which  it  is  placed  had  the  name  sound.  The  testimony  of  the 
Ormulum,  at  any  rate,  is  apparently  decisive  to  the  fact  that,  of  the  two  words  at 
present  under  consideration,  the  one  which  used  to  be  written  without  the  accert 
was  pronounced  with  the  name  sound,  and  the  other,  formerly  taking  the  accent, 
with  the  sliut  sound.  God  was  sounded  ifoad,  and  god  was  sounded  god  or  godd. 
This  was  undoubtedly  the  case,  if  Ormin's  distinctive  spelling  here  indicates  the 
same  thing  that  it  usually  does. 

Again,  year  and  here  and  read  appear,  from  the  manner  in  which  Ormin  writes 
them,  to  have  all  been  pronounced  in  his  day  as  they  are  at  present ;  and  so,  no 
doubt,  they  then  said  to  seen  (with  the  old  termination  of  the  intinitive)  for  our  to 
see,  not  to  sen  (which  Ormin  would  have  given  as  seiiii).  But,  on  the  other  hand,^et 
and  Well  were  apparently  then  pronounced  i/eet  and  wee/,  and  have  with  the  long  a  as 
in  cave  (the  following  consonant,  besides,  being  an  f  instead  of  a  v).  There  may 
be  some  doubt,  perhaps,  in  regard  to  the  o  in  brother  and  word  and  l>ook  and  love,  and 
tlie  dom  of  Christendom.  All  we  can  say  is,  that  it  seems  not  to  have  been  the  ordi- 
nary shut  sound  ;  it  might  be  going  too  far  to  assume  that  people  formerly  said 
broather  and  woard  and  Christendoani  and  boak  and  I  oof  (or  leuf).  Probably  both  the 
IV  and  the  k  were  recognized  as  having  a  softening  effect  upon  the  voweL  so  that 
they  might  pronounce  it  rather  as  we  still  do  in  Worcester  and  Wolverhampton  and 
Wolsei/  and  worsted  and  wolf  and  woman  and  Bolingbroke  and  Pemlrroke  and  other 
similar  words  (some  of  which  liave  exchanged  the  oke  for  ook  in  our  modern  spell- 
ing.) 

Ormin  has  evidently  taken  the  greatest  pains  with  his  orthography,  and  it  is  for 
the  most  part  very  uniform.  It  may  be  doubted  if  any  other  language  possesses  a 
record  of  its  ancient  pronunciation  at  all  apijroaching  in  distinctness  and  complete- 
ness to  what  we  thus  have  for  the  English  in  the  single  manuscript  in  which  his 
work  has  been  preserved,  thanks  to  his  singular  scrupidosity  in  this  jiarticular.  It 
is  probably  a  unique  instance  of  any  considerable  knowledge  liavinij  been  transmit- 
ted u[)on  positive  evidence  of  a  part  of  human  speech  which  lias  usually  for  the 
greater  part  perished  with  those  upon  whose  lips  it  once  lived,  and  is  only  at  best 
to  be  imperfectly  recovered,  after  some  generations  have  passed  away,  by  conjeo- 
tural  speculation,  mostly  of  a  very  dubious  and  unsatisfactory  character. 


THE   ANCREN   RIWLE.  219 

position  of  eminence  and  authority,  for  the  direction  of  three  ladies 
to  whom  it  is  addressed,  and  who,  with  their  domestic  servants  or 
lay  sisters,  appear  to  have  formed  the  entire  community  of  a  relig- 
ious house  situated  at  Tarente  (otherwise  called  Tarrant-Kaines, 
Kaineston,  or  Kingston)  in  Dorsetshire.  This  work  too  has  now 
been  printed,  having  been  edited  for  the  Camden  Society  in  1853  by 
the  Rev.  James  Morton,  B.D.  It  is  preserved  in  four  manuscripts, 
three  of  them  in  the  Cottonian  Collection,  the  other  belongino;  to 
Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge  ;  and  there  is  also  in  the  Li- 
brary of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  a  Latin  text  of  the  greater 
part  of  it.  The  entire  work  extends  to  eight  Parts,  or  Books, 
which  in  the  printed  edition  cover  215  quarto  pages.  Mr.  Morton, 
who  has  appended  to  an  apparently  careful  representation  of  the 
ancient  text  both  a  glossary  and  a  version  in  the  language  of  the 
present  day,  has  clearly  shown,  in  opposition  to  the  commonly  re- 
ceived opinion,  that  the  work  was  originally  wi'itten  in  English, 
and  that  the  Latin  in  so  far  as  it  goes  is  only  a  translation.  This, 
indeed,  might  have  been  inferred  as  most  probable  in  such  a  case, 
on  the  mere  ground  that  we  have  here  a  clergyman,  however 
learned,  drawing  up  a  manual  of  practical  religious  instruction  for 
readers  of  the  other  sex,  even  without  the  special  proofs  which  Mr. 
Morton  has  brought  forward.  The  conclusion  to  which  he  states 
himself  to  have  come,  after  carefully  examining  and  comparing  the 
text  which  he  prints  with  the  Oxford  MS.,  is,  that  the  Latin  is  "  a 
translation,  in  many  parts  abridged  and  in  some  enlarged,  made  at 
a  comparatively  recent  period,  when  the  language  in  which  the 
whole  had  been  originally  written  was  becoming  obsolete."  In 
many  instances,  in  fact,  the  Latin  translator  has  misunderstood  his 
original.  Mr.  Morton  has  also  thrown  great  doubts  upon  the  com- 
mon belief  that  the  authorship  of  the  work  is  to  be  ascribed  to  a 
certain  Simon  de  Gandavo,  or  Simon  de  Ghent,  who  died  bishop 
of  Salisbury  in  1315.  This  belief  rests  solely  on  the  authority  of 
an  anonymous  note  prefixed  to  the  Latin  version  of  the  work  pre- 
served in  Magdalen  College,  Oxford ;  and  Mr.  Morton  conceives 
that  Simon  is  of  much  too  late  a  date.  It  might  have  been  thought 
that  the  fact  of  the  work  havincp  been  written  in  Eno;lish  would  of 
itself  be  conclusive  against  his  claim ;  but  the  bishop  of  Salisbury, 
it  seems,  was  born  in  London  or  Westminster  ;  it  was  only  his 
father  who  was  a  native  of  Flanders.  On  the  whole,  Mr.  Morton 
is  incHned  to  substitute  in  place  of  Bishop  Simon  a  Richard  Poor, 


220  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

who  was  successively  bishop  of  Chichester,  of  Sahsbury,  and  of 
Durliam,  and  who  Avas  a  native  of  Tarente,  where  also,  it  seems, 
he  died  in  1237.  Of  this  prelate  Matthew  Paris  speaks  in  very 
hiffh  terms  of  commendation. 

Two  other  mistakes  in  the  old  accounts  are  also  disposed  of:  — 
that  the  three  recluses  to  whom  the  work  is  addressed  belonged  to 
the  monastic  order  of  St.  James,  and  that  they  were  the  sisters  of 
the  writer.  He  merely  directs  them,  if  any  ignorant  person  should 
ask  them  of  what  order  they  were,  to  say  that  they  were  of  the 
crier  of  St.  James,  who  in  his  canonical  epistle  has  declared  that 
pure  religion  consists  in  visiting  and  relieving  the  widow  and  the 
orphan,  and  in  keeping  ourselves  unspotted  from  the  world  ;  and 
in  addressing  them  as  his  dear  sisters,  "  he  only,"  as  Mr.  Morton 
explains,  "  uses  the  form  of  speech  commonly  adopted  in  convents, 
where  nuns  are  usually  spoken  of  as  sisters  or  mothers,  and  monks 
as  brothers  or  fathers." 

Upon  what  is  the  most  important  question  relating  to  the  work, 
regarded  as  a  documentary  monument  belonging  to"  the  history  of 
the  language,  the  learned  editor  has  scarcely  succeeded  in  throw- 
ing so  much  light.  Of  the  age  of  the  manuscripts,  or  the  charac- 
ter of  the  handwriting,  not  a  word  is  said.  It  does  not  even  appear 
whether  any  one  of  the  copies  can  be  supposed  to  be  of  the  anti- 
quity assumed  for  the  work  ujwn  either  the  new  or  the  old  theory 
of  its  authorship.  The  qviestion  is  left  to  rest  entirely  upon  the 
language,  which,  it  is  remarked,  is  evidently  that  of  the  first  quar- 
ter of  the  thirteenth  century,  not  greatly  differing  from  that  of 
Layamon,  which  has  been  clearly  shown  by  Sir  F.  Madden  to  have 
been  written  not  later  than  1205. 

The  Eno-lish  of  the  Ancren  Rule  is,  indeed,  rude  enouo-h  for  the 
highest  antiquity  that  can  be  demanded  for  it.  "  The  spelling," 
Mr.  Morton  observes,  "  whether  from  carelessness  or  Avant  of  sys- 
tem, is  of  an  uncommon  and  unsettled  character,  and  may  be  pro- 
nounced barbarous  and  uncouth."  Tlie  language  he  considers  to 
be  what  is  commonly  called  Semi-Saxon,  or  "  Anglo-Saxon  some- 
what changed  ;  and  in  the  first  of  the  various  stages  through  wliicli 
tt  had  to  pass  before  it  arrived  at  the  copiousness  and  elegance  of 
the  ])resent  English."  This  statement  is  perhaps  not  quite  consist- 
ent with  the  doctrine  which  afterwards  seems  to  be  laid  down,  tjiat 
no  particular  effect  was  produced  upon  the  language  of  England  by 
ihe  Norman  Conquest,  that  it  only  after  that  revolution  continued 


THE   ANCREN  RIWLE.  221 

to  go  on  In  the  same  course  of  gradual  disintegration,  or  simplifi- 
cation, which  it  had  been  running  for  some  centuries,  suffering 
nothing  more  of  change  than  it  would  have  done  if  the  Normans 
"had  never  invaded  the  country.  If  that  were  so,  how  can  the 
stage  in  which  it  is  supposed  to  have  been  found  some  short  time 
after  the  Conquest  be  with  propriety  spoken  of  as  the  first  of  a 
series?  But  is  it  possible  to  believe  that  so  complete  a  social  revo- 
lution as  the  Conquest,  aflt'ecting  everything  else  in  the  country, 
should  have  left  the  language,  which  is  always  to  so  great  an  extent 
the  expression  or  reflection  of  everything  else,  untouched  ?  The 
gradual  change  that  may  have  been  proceeding  for  some  time 
before  is  not  inconsistent  with  or  any  disproof  of  the  more  sudden 
and  violent  change  which  may  have  taken  place  at  this  crisis,  pre- 
cipitating the  ruin  of  the  already  decaying  original  system  of  the 
language,  just  as  the  shaking  of  a  tree,  by  a  blast  of  wind  or  in 
any  other  way,  would  bring  down  at  once  a  shower  of  leaves  or 
blossoms,  which,  although  beginning  to  wither  or  lose  their  hold, 
might  still  have  huna;  on  for  a  considerable  time  longer,  if  the  tree 
had  not  been  thus  rudely  assailed. 

In  this  work,  according  to  Mr.  Morton,  the  inflections  Avliich 
originally  marked  the  oblique  cases  of  substantive  nouns,  and  also 
the  distinctions  of  gender,  are  for  the  most  part  discarded.  "  Yet," 
he  adds,  "  as  these  changes  are  partial  and  incomplete,  enough  of 
the  more  ancient  characteristics  of  the  language  is  left  to  justify 
the  inference  that  the  innovations  are  recent.  Not  only  is  es  of 
the  genitive  case  retained,  but  we  very  often  meet  with  the  dative 
and  the  accusative  in  e  and  the  accusative  in  en,  as  then,  the.  We 
also  meet  occasionally  with  the  genitive  plural  in  re,  from  the  Saxon 
ra,  and  ne  and  ene,  from  ena}  .  .  .  The  cases  and  genders  of  ad- 
jectives are  generally  disused,  but  not  always.  .  .  .  The  moods  and 
tenses  of  verbs  are  little  altered  from  the  older  forms,  and  in  many 
words  they  are  not  changed  at  all.  The  infinitive,  which  in  pure 
Saxon  ends  invariably  in  an,  is  changed  into  en."  In  only  three 
infinitives,  ivarnie  (to  warn),  i-wurthe  (to  be),  and  windwe  (to  win- 
now), has  the  final  n  dropped  off;  nor  does  the  language  exhibit 
any  of  the  other  Scandinavian  peculiarities  which  mark  what  Hickes 
calls  the  Dano-Saxon,  or  what  is  known  to  modern  philology  as 
the  Anglian  dialect.     From  this,  and  from  its  general  resemblance 

1  Does  not  the  very  title  of  the  book  afford  us  also  an  instance  of  a  genitive 
oliiral  in  en  ;  ancren  =  of  anchoresses  '^     Tliis,  however,  appears  to  be  rare. 


222  EXGLTSH    LITERATURE   AND    LANGUAGE. 

to  the  older  text  of  Layamon,  which  appears  to  have  been  produced 
on  tlie  banks  of  the  Severn,  Mr.  Morton  thinks  it  most  probable 
tliat  the  Eno-hsh  we  have  in  the  Rule  is  that  of  the  West  of  Eno-- 
land  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

In  one  particular,  however,  it  differs  remarkably  from  Layamon's 
Enorlish.  In  that,  as  we  have  seen,  Sir  F.  Madden  found  in  above 
32,000  verses  of  the  older  text  only  about  50  words  of  French 
derivation,  and  only  about  90  in  all  in  the  57,000  of  both  texts  ; 
whereas  in  the  present  work  the  infusion  of  Xorman  words  is 
described  as  large.  But  this,  as  Mr.  Morton  suggests,  is  "  owing 
probably  to  the  peculiar  subjects  treated  of  in  it,  which  are  theo* 
logical  and  moral,  in  speaking  of  which  terms  derived  from  the 
Latin  would  readily  occur  to  the  mind  of  a  learned  ecclesiastic 
much  conversant  w^ith  that  language,  and  with  the  works  on  similar 
subjects  written  in  it." 

A  few  sentences  from  the  Eighth  or  last  Part,  which  treats  of 
domestic  matters,  will  aiford  a  sufficient  specimen  of  this  curious 
work :  — 

Ye  ne  schulen  eten  vleschs  ne  seim  buten  ine  mucliele  secnesse  ;  other 
hwoso  is  euer  feble  eteth  potage  blithebche ;  and  wunieth  ou  to  lutel 
irunch.  Notheleas,  leoue  sustren,  ower  mete  and  ower  drunch  liaueth 
ithuht  me  lesse  then  ich  wolde.  Ne  ueste  ye  nenne  dei  to  bread  and  to 
watere,  bute  ye  habben  leaue.  Sum  ancre  maketh  hire  bord  mid  hire 
gistes  withuten.  Thet  is  to  muche  ureondschipe,  uor,  of  alle  ordres  theonne 
is  liit  unkuindelukest  and  mest  ayean  ancre  ordre,  thet  is  al  dead  to  the 
worhle.  Me  haueth  i-herd  ofte  siggcn  thet  deade  men  speken  mid  cwike 
men ;  auh  thet  heo  eten  mid  cwike  men  ne  uond  ich  neuer  yete.  Ne 
makie  ye  none  gistninges  ;  ne  ne  tulle  ye  to  the  yete  non  unkuthe  harloz ; 
tliauli  ther  nore  non  other  vuel  of  [hit  ?]  bute  hore  methlease  muth,  hit 
wolde  other  hwule  letten  heouendliche  thouhtes. 

[That  is,  literally:  —  Ye  not  shall  eat  flesh  nor  lard  but  in  much 
sickness ;  or  whoso  is  ever  feeble  may  eat  potage  blithely ;  and 
accustom  yourselves  to  little  drink.  Nevertheless,  dear  sisters, 
your  meat  and  your  drink  have  seemed  to  me  less  than  I  would 
(have  it).  Fast  ye  not  no  day  to  bread  and  to  water  but  ye  have 
leave.  Some  anchoresses  make  their  board  (or  meals)  witli  their 
friends  without.  That  is  too  much  friendship,  for,  of  all  orders, 
then  is  it  most  unnatural  and  most  against  anchoress  order,  tliat  is 
ill  diad  to  the  world.  One  has  heard  oft  say  that  dead  men  s])i'ak 
with  quick  (li\'ing)  men  ;  but  that  they  eat  with  quirk  men  not 


THE   ANCREN   RIAVLE.  223 

found  I  never  yet.     Make  not  ye  no  banquetings,  nor  allure  ye 
not  to  the  gate  no  strange  vagabonds ;  though  there  were  not  none 
other  evil  of  it  but  their  measureless  mouth  (or  talk),  it  would 
(or  might)  other  while  (sometimes)  hinder  heavenly  thoughts.] 
And  again  :  — 

Ye,  mine  leoue  sustren,  ne  schulen  habben  no  best,  bute  kat  one.  Ancre 
thet  haueth  eihte  thuncheth  bet  husewif,  ase  Marthe  was,  then  ancre  ;  ne 
none  wise  mei  heo  been  Marie,  mid  grithfulnesse  of  heorte.  Vor  theonne 
mot  heo  thenchen  of  the  kues  foddre,  and  of  heorde-monne  huire,  oluhnen 
thene  heiward,  warien  hwon  me  punt  hire,  and  j^elden,  thauh,  the  hermes. 
Wat  Crist,  this  is  lodlich  thing  hwon  me  maketh  in  tune  of  ancre  eihte. 
Thauh,  yif  eni  mot  nede  Iiabben  ku,  loke  thet  heo  none  monne  ne  eilie  ne 
ne  hermie  ;  ne  thet  hire  thouht  ne  beo  nout  theron  i-uestned.  Ancre  ne 
ouh  nout  to  habben  no  thing  thet  drawe  utward  hire  heorte.  None  chef- 
fare  ne  driue  ye.  Ancre  thet  is  cheapild,  heo  cheapeth  hire  soule  the 
chepmon  of  belle.  Ne  wite  ye  nout  in  oure  huse  of  other  monnes  thinges, 
ne  eihte,  ne  clothes  ;  ne  nout  ne  underuo  ye  the  chirche  uestimenz,  ne 
thene  caliz,  bute  yif  strencthe  hit  makie,  other  muchel  eie ;  vor  of  swuche 
witunge  is  i-kumen  muchel  vuel  oftesithen.  Withinnen  ower  woanes  ne 
lete  ye  nenne  mon  slepen.  Yif  muchel  neode  mid  alle  maketh  breken 
ower  bus,  the  hwule  thet  it  euer  is  i-broken,  loke  thet  ye  habben  therinne 
mid  ou  one  wummon  of  clene  line  deies  and  nihtes. 

Uorthi  thet  no  mon  ne  i-sihth  ou,  ne  ye  i-seoth  nenne  mon,  wel  mei 
dou  of  ower  clothes,  beon  heo  hwite,  beon  heo  blake  ;  but  thet  heo  beon 
unome  and  warme,  and  Avel  i-wrouhte,  uelles  wel  i-tawed ;  and  habbeth 
ase  monie  ase  ou  to-neodeth,  to  bedde  and  eke  to  rugge. 

Nexst  fleshe  ne  schal  mon  werien  no  linene  cloth,  bute  yif  hit  beo  of 
herde  and  of  greate  heorden.  Stamin  habbe  hwose  wule ;  and  hwose 
wille  mei  beon  buten.  Ye  schulen  liggen  in  on  heater,  and  i-gurd.  Ne 
bere  ye  non  ireu,  ne  here,  ne  irspiles  felles ;  ne  ne  beate  on  ther  mide,  ne 
mid  schurge  i-lethered  ne  i-leaded ;  ne  mid  holie  ne  mid  breres  ne  ne  bib- 
lodge  liire  sulf  withuten  schriftes  leaue ;  ne  ne  nime,  et  enes,  to  veole  dis- 
ceplines.  Ower  schone  beon  greate  and  warme.  Ine  sumer  ye  habbetli 
leaue  uorto  gon  and  sitten  baruot ;  and  hosen  withuten  uaumpes  ;  and  ligge 
iime  ham  liwoso  liketh.  .  .  .  Ring  ne  broche  nabbe  ye ;  ne  gurdel  i-men- 
bred,  ne  glouen,  ne  no  swuch  thing  thet  ou  ne  deih  forto  habben.  .  ,  . 

Ye  ne  schulen  senden  lettres,  ne  underuon  lettres,  ne  writen,  buten 
leaue.  Ye  schulen  beon  i-dodded  four  sithen  ithe  yere,  uorto  lihten  ower 
heaued  ;  and  ase  ofte  i-leten  blod  ;  and  oftere  yif  neod  is  ;  and  hwoso  mei 
beon  ther  withuten,  ich  hit  mei  wel  i-tholien. 

[L'terally :  —  Ye,  my  dear  sisters,  shall  not  have  no  beast  but 
Ca)  cat  only.     (An)  anchoress  that  hath  cattle  seems  (a)  better 


224  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

housewife,  as  Martha  was,  than  anchoress,  nor  no  w^ise  may  she  he 
Mary  with  peacefuhiess  of  heart.  For  then  must  she  think  of  the 
cow's  fodder,  and  of  the  herdsman's  liire,  flatter  the  heyward  (cat- 
tle-keeper), defend  (herself)  when  they  pound  her  (put  her  cattle 
in  the  pound),  and  pay,  moreover,  the  harms  (damages).  Know- 
eth  Christ,  this  is  (an)  ugly  thing  when  they  make  moan  (com- 
plaint) in  town  of  anchoresses  cattle.  Though  if  any  must  needs 
have  (a)  cow,  look  that  she  no  man  not  annoy  nor  not  harm,  nor 
that  her  thought  not  be  not  thereon  fastened.  (An)  anchoress  not 
ought  not  to  have  nothing  that  draweth  outward  her  heart.  No 
chaffering  not  drive  ye  (no  buying  and  selling  carry  ye  on).  (An) 
anchoress  that  is  a  chafferer,  she  chaffereth  her  soul  with  the  chap- 
man of  hell.  Nor  take  ye  not  charge  in  your  house  of  other  men's 
things,  nor  cattle,  nor  clothes  ;  nor  not  receive  ye  not  (under  your 
care)  the  chiu'ch  vestments,  nor  the  chalice,  but  if  (unless)  strength 
it  make  (force  compel  it),  or  much  fear ;  for  of  such  charge-taking 
is  come  much  evil  oftentimes.  Within  your  walls  let  ye  not  no 
man  sleep.  If  much  need  (strong  necessity),  withal  (how^ever), 
make  (cause)  to  use  your  house,  the  while  that  (so  long  as)  it  ever 
is  used  look  that  ye  have  tlierein  with  you  a  woman  of  clean  life 
days  and  nights. 

Because  that  no  man  neither  seeth  you,  nor  ye  see  no  man, 
well  may  (ye)  do  of  (with)  your  clothes,  be  they  white,  be  they 
black;  but  (see)  that  they  be  plain  and  warm  and  well  made, 
skins  well  tawed  ;  and  have  as  many  as  it  needeth  you,  to  bed  and 
eke  to  back. 

Next  the  flesh  shall  not  one  wear  no  linen  cloth,  but  if  it  be  of 
hards  and  of  great  (coarse)  canvas.  A  stamin  (shirt  of  woollen  and 
linen)  may  have  whoso  will,  and  whoso  will  may  be  without.  Ye 
shall  lie  in  a  garment,  and  girt.  Nor  bear  (carry)  ye  not  iron, 
nor  hair  (haircloth),  nor  hedgehog  skins  ;  nor  beat  not  yourselves 
therewith,  nor  with  scourge  leathered  nor  leaded ;  nor  Avith  holly 
nor  with  briars  not  blood  not  herself  (yourselves)  Avithout  shrift's 
(shriver's)  leave ;  nor  take  not,  at  once,  too  many  disciplines 
(flagellations).  (Let)  your  shoes  be  large  and  Avarm.  In  sum- 
mer ye  have  leave  for  to  go  and  sit  barefoot ;  and  (to  AA^car)  hose 
without  vamps ;  and  AA^hoso  likcth  may  lie  in  them.  .  .  .  Ring  nor 
brooch  <lo  not  ye  have,  nor  girdle  oi'namented,  nor  gloves,  nor  no 
such  thing  that  it  not  behoveth  you  for  to  have.  .  .  . 

Ye  shall  not  send  letters,  nor  receive  letters,  nor  Avrite  Avithout 


METRICAL   LEGENDS.  225 

leave.  Ye  shall  be  cropped  four  times  in  the  yea,^,  for  to  lighten 
your  head;  and  as  often  let  blood,  and  oftener  if  need  is;  and 
whoso  may  be  there-without  (may  dispense  with  this)  I  it  may 
well  endiu'e.] 


METKICAL  LEGENDS.- LAND  OF  COKAYNE.  — GULDEVORD.— 
WILLE   GRIS.— EARLY  ENGLISH    SONGS. 

With  regard  to  the  metrical  Leo-ends  of  Saints  and  other 
pieces,  which  have  been  assigned  by  Hickes  and  Warton  to  the 
twelfth  century,  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable,  as  already 
remarked,  that  none  of  them  belong  to  an  earlier  period  than  the 
latter  part  of  the  thirteenth,  and  that  some  are  not  even  of  that 
antiquity.  It  is  impossible,  for  instance,  to  believe  that  the  cele- 
brated satirical  poem  on  the  Land  of  Cokayne,  which  Warton  holds 
to  have  been  "  evidently  written  soon  after  the  Conquest,  at  least 
before  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Second,"  can,  in  the  form  in  which 
we  have  it,  be  older  than  the  year  1300,  if  it  be  even  quite 
so  old.^  Price  has  noted '"^  that  "a  French  fabliau  bearincr  a  near 
resemblance  to  this  poem,  and  possibly  the  production  upon  which 
the  English  minstrel  founded  his  song,  has  been  published  in  the 
new  edition  of  Barbazan's  Fabliaux  et  Contcs,  Paris  1808,  vol.  iv. 
p.  175 ;  "  and  Sir  Frederic  Madden  has  no  doubt  that  the  French 
composition  is  the  original.^  It  is  undoubtedly  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  The  English  poem,  which  he  also  assumes  to  be  a  trans- 
lation, is  given  in  full  by  Ellis  (Specimens  of  Early  English  Poets, 
4th  edit.,  i.  83-95)  ;  and  abundant  samples  of  the  other  fugitive 
and  anonymous  poetry  which  has  been  attributed  to  the  same  age, 
but  the  alleged  antiquity  of  which  is  in  many  cases  equally  dispu- 
table, may  be  found  in  Hickes  and  in  Warton. 

As  we  have  had  occasion  to  show  that  there  is  no  authority  in 
the    Lanercost   Chronicle  for   one    specimen  of  early  verse   cited 

1  In  a  note  to  the  1840  edition  of  Warton's  History,  i.  8,  Mr.  Wright  says  :  — 
"  The  identical  MS.  from  which  Hickes  transcribed  this  poem  is  in  the  Ilarleian 
Collection,  No.  913.  I  have  traced  its  history  satisfactorily.  It  was  written  early 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  tliis  poem  is  a  composition  of  at  the  most  five  or  six 
years  earher." 

-  Note  on  Warton  (1824),  i.  12.  s  Ibid.  (1840),  i.  8. 

VOL.  I.  29 


226  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

thence  bv  Ritson,  Ave  may  here  insert  a  couplet  therein  given  un- 
der tlie  year  1244,  which  has  generally  escaped  attention.  A  Nor- 
folk peasant-boy,  named  William,  had  left  his  fither's  house  and 
set  out  to  seek  his  fortune,  with  no  companion  or  other  possession  but 
a  little  pig  (porcellus),  whence  the  people  used  to  call  him  Willii 
Crrice;^  but  having  in  his  wanderings  in  France  met  with  a  rich 
widow,  whom  he  wooed  and  wed,  he  became  in  the  end  a  great 
man  in  that  country :  still  he  piously  remembered  his  early  life  of 
poverty  and  vagrancy,  and  among  the  other  ornaments  of  one  of 
the  apartments  of  his  fine  house,  to  which  he  used  to  retire  every 
day  for  an  hour's  meditation  and  self-communion,  he  had  himself 
pictured,  leading  the  pig  as  he  used  to  do  wath  a  string,  with  thia 
superscription  in  his  native  tongue  :  — 

Wille  Gris,  Wille  Gris ! 

Thinche  twat  thou  was,  and  qwat  thou  es. 

Some  of  our  earliest  songs  that  have  been  preserved  undoubt- 
edly belong  to  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
well-known  lines  beginning  "  Sumer  is  i-cumen  in,"  first  printed 
by  Warton  in  the  Additions  to  his  History,  fi'om  the  Harleian  iNLS. 
978,  beino-  the  oldest  English  song-  that  has  been  found  with  the 
musical  notes  annexed,  appear  to  be  of  this  antiquity ;  '^  and  so 
likewise  may  be  some  of  the  other  pieces  which  Warton  has  quoted 
from  another  of  the  Harleian  MSS.  (2253).  But  the  compositions 
of  this  kind  of  most  certain  date  are  some  referring  to  the  public 
events  of  the  day,  and  evidently  written  at  the  time  ;  such  as  the 
ballad  about  the  battle  of  Lewes  (fought  in  1264),  and  others  in 
Percy's  Reliques,  in  Ritson's  Ancient  Songs,  and  in  Mr.  Wright's 
collection  printed  for  the  Camden  Society,  and  entitled  The  Politi- 
cal Songs  of  England,  from  the  Reign  of  John  to  that  of  Edward 
n.,  4tol  Lond.  1839. 

1  (jrirr,  which  is  of  frequent  occurrence  in  Piers  Plowman,  and  continued  in  use 
in  England  at  least  down  to  the  middle  of  tlie  sixteenth  century  is  still  the  com- 
mon word  for  a  pig  in  Scotland. 

-  Ill  a  note  to  the  1840  edition  of  "Warton,  Sir  F.  Madden  states  that  the  Harleian 
'MS.  978  is  certainly  of  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


EARLY  ENGLISH   METRICAL  ROMANCES. 

From  the  thirteenth  century  also  avb  are  probably  to  date  the 
origin  or  earliest  composition  of  English  metrical  romances  ;  at 
least,  none  have  descended  to  the  present  day  which  seem  to  have 
a  claim  to  any  higher  antiquity.  There  is  no  absolutely  conclu- 
sive evidence  that  all  our  old  metrical  romances  are  translation., 
fi-om  the  French  ;  the  French  original  cannot  in  eveiy  case  be 
produced ;  but  it  is  at  least  extremely  doubtful  if  any  such  work 
was  ever  composed  in  English  except  upon  the  foundation  of  a 
similar  French  work.  It  is  no  objection  that  the  subjects  of  most 
of  these  poems  are  not  French  or  continental,  but  British,  —  that 
the  stories  of  some  of  them  are  purely  English  or  Saxon  :  this,  as 
has  been  shown,  was  the  case  with  the  early  northern  French  poe- 
try generally,  from  whatever  cause,  whether  simply  in  consequence 
of  the  connection  of  Normandy  with  this  country  from  the  time  of 
the  Conquest,  or  partly  from  the  earlier  intercourse  of  the  Nor- 
mans with  their  neighbors  the  people  of  Armorica,  or  Bretagne, 
whose  legends  and  traditions,  which  were  common  to  them  with 
their  kindi'ed  the  Welsh,  have  unquestionably  served  as  the  foun- 
tain-head to  the  most  copious  of  all  the  streams  of  romantic  fiction. 
French  seems  to  have  been  the  only  language  of  popular  literature 
(apart  from  mere  songs  and  ballads)  in  England  for  some  ages 
after  the  Conquest ;  if  even  a  native  legend,  therefore,  was  to  be 
turned  into  a  romance,  it  was  in  French  that  the  poem  would  at 
that  period  be  written.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  some  legends 
might  have  escaped  the  French  trouveurs,  to  be  discovered  and 
taken  up  at  a  later  date  by  the  English  minstrels  ;  but  this  is  not 
likely  to  have  happened  with  any  that  were  at  all  popular  or  gen- 
erally known  ;  and  of  this  description,  it  is  believed,  are  all  those, 
witliout  any  exception,  upon  which  oiir  existing  early  English  met- 
rical romances  are  founded^  The  subjects  of  these  compositions  — 
Tristrem,  King  Horn,  Hfavelok,  &c.  —  could  hardly  have  beiu 
missed  by  the  French  poets  in  the  long  period  during  which  they 
had  the  whole  field  to  themselves  :  we  have  the  most  conclusive 
evidence  with  regard  to  some  of  the  legends  in  question  that  they 
were  well  known  at  an  early  date  to  the  writers  in  that  language  ; 
—  the  story  of  Havelok,  for  instance,  is  in  Gaimar's  Chronicle  ;  — 
apon  this  general  consideration  alone,  therefore,  which  is  at  least 


228  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

not  contradicted  by  either  the  internal  or  historical  evidence  in  anj 
particular  case^^t  seems  reasonable  to  infer  that,  where  we  have  both 
an  English  and  a  French  metrical  romance  upon  the  same  subject, 
the  French  is  the  earlier  of  the  two,  and  the  original  of  the  other/ 
From  this  it  is,  in  the  circumstances,  scarcely  a  step  to  the  conclu- 
sion come  to  by/ryrwliitti^  who  has  intimated  his  Jjelief  "  that  we 
liave  no  English  romance  prior  to  the  age  of  Chaucer  which  is  not 
a  translation  or  imitation  of  some  earlier  French  romance."  ^  Cer- 
tainly, if  this  judgment  has  not  been  absolutely  demonstrated,  it  lias 
not  been  refuted,  by  the  more  extended  investigation  the  question 
has  since  received.  /  , 


h^ 


PUBLICATIONS  OF  PERCY  —  WARTON  —  TYR WHITT  —  PINKERTON  —  HER- 
BERT —  RITSOX  —  ELLIS  —  SCOTT  —  WEBER  —  UTTERSON  —  LAING  — 
HARTSHORNE  —  THE  ROXBURGHE  CLUB  —  THE  BANNATYNE  —  THE 
MAITLAND— THE   ABBOTSFORD  —  THE    CAMDEN    SOCIETY. 

The  first  account,  in  any  detail,  of  our  early  English  metrical 
romances  was  given  by  Percy,  in  the  third  volume  of  his  Reliques 
of  Ancient  English  Poetry,  first  published  in  1765.  In  this  Essay, 
of  twenty-four  pages  (extended  to  thirty-eight  in  the  fourth  edition 
of  the  work,  1794),  he  gave  a  list  of  thirty  of  these  poems,  to 
which,  in  subsequent  editions,  he  added  nine  more.  Then  came 
the  first  volume  of  Warton's  History  of  English  Poetry,  in  1774, 
with  a  much  more  discursive  examination  at  least  of  parts  of  the 
subject,  and  ample  specimens  of  several  romances.  Tyrwhitt's 
edition  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  of  Chaucer  followed  the  next 
year,  with  many  valuable  notices  on  tliis  as  Avell  as  other  matters 
belonging  to  oiu'  early  literature  in  the  interesting  preliminary  Es- 
say on  the  Language  and  Versification  of  his  author,  Avhich  is  in 
fact  a  history  of  the  lancruaoje  down  to  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  In  1792  Pinkerton  inserted  the  Scotch  metrical  romance 
of  Gawan  and  Galogras,  from  an  Edinburgli  edition  of  1508,  in  his 
collection  of  Scotish  Poems,  reprinted  fi-om  scarce  editions,  3  vols. 
8vo.,  Lond.  ;  and  he  also  gave  in  his  last  volume,  as  one  of  "  three 
[)ieces  before  unpublished,"  that  of  Sir  Gawan  and  Sir  Galaron  of 
Galloway;  which  was  copied  into  Sibl)ahrs  Chronicle  of  Scottish 
Poetiy  (i.  pp.  XV.  &c.),  4  vols.  8vo.,  Edinb.  1802.     In  1798  ap- 

^  Essay  on  the  Langunpo  of  Chaucer,  note  55. 


PRINTED  METRICAL   ROMANCES.  22& 

peared  Roberts  tlie  Deuyll,  a  metrical  romance,  from  an  ancient 
illmninated  MS.  (8vo.,  Lond.),  printed  for  I.  Herbert;  whose  name 
is  also  at  the  end  of  a  short  prefatory  advertisement,  in  Avhich  it  is 
stated  that  the  MS.  agreed,  word  for  word,  with  a  remaining  frag- 
ment of  an  edition  of  the  poem  which  appears  to  have  been  printed 
early  in  tlie  sixteenth  century  by  Wynken  de  Worde,  or  Pynson. 
The  volume  has  a  number  of  engravings,  which  are  very  curious, 
and  seem  to  be  fac-similes  of  the  illuminations  in  the  MS.^  In 
1802  Ritson  published  at  London  his  3  vols.  8vo.  of  Ancient  Eng- 
leish  Metrical  Romances,  containing,  besides  his  Dissertation  on 
Romance  and  Minstrelsy,  Avliich  tills  220  pages  of  the  first  volume, 
the  romances,  in  their  entu-e  length,  of  Ywaine  and  Gawin  (4032 
lines)  ;  of  Launfal,  or  Launfal  Miles,  a  translation  from  the  French 
of  Marie  by  Thomas  Chestre  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  (1044 
lines)  ;  of  Lybeaus  Disconus,  that  is,  Le  Beau  Desconnu,  or  The 
Fair  Unknown,  sometimes  called  Lybius  Disconius  (2130  lines)  ; 
of  The  Geste  of  Kyng  Horn  (1546  lines)  ;  of  The  Kyng  of  Tars 
and  the  Soudan  of  Dammas  (1148  lines) ;  of  Emare  (1035  lines) ; 
of  Sir  Orpheo  (510  lines)  ;  of  The  Chronicle  of  Engleland  (1036 
lines)  ;  of  Le  Bone  Florence  of  Rome  (2189  lines)  ;  of  The  Erie 
of  Tolous  (1218  lines)  ;  of  The  Squyr  of  Lowe  Degre  (1132  lines)  ; 
and  of  The  Knight  of  Curtesy  and  the  Fair  Lady  of  Fagnell  (500 
lines)  :  together  with  133  pages  of  Notes,  including  tlie  imperfect 
romance  of  Horn  Childe  and  Maiden  Rimnild  (about  1150  lines) 
from  the  Auchinleck  MS.  in  the  Advocates'  Library  at  Edinburgh : 
the  whole  being  followed  by  a  Glossary,  filling  about  80  pages  ;  in 
commendation  of  which,  however,  very  little  can  be  said.  With 
the  exception  of  The  Squyr  of  Lowe  Degre,  and  The  Knight  of 
Curtesy,  which  are  from  rare  black-letter  copies  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  all  the  pieces  in  this  collection  of  Ritson's  are  transcribed 
from  manuscripts,  most  of  them  unique.  A  more  successful  at- 
tempt to  diffuse  a  knowledge  of  this  portion  of  our  ancient  poeti- 
cal literature  was  made  by  Mr.  George  Ellis  in  his  Specimens  of 
Early  English  Metrical  Romances,  3  vols.  8vo.,  first  published  in 
1805.  Besides  an  Historical  Introduction  on  the  Rise  and  Progress 
of  Romantic  Composition  in  France  and  England  —  followed  by  an 
Analysis  (by  Mr.  Douce)  of  the  MS.  work  of  Petrus  Alphonsus 
entitled  De  Clericali  Disciplina,  and  an  account,  amounting  almost 

1  See  a  note  on  the  legend  of  Robert  the  Devil,  by  Sir  F.  Madden,  in  the  184C 
sdition  of  Warton,  i.  187,  and  another  bj  Mr.  R.  Taylor,  pp.  207,  208. 


230  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

to  a  complete  translation,  of  the  twelve  Lays  of  Marie  of  France 
—  this  work,  of  which  a  second  edition  appeared  in  1811,  con- 
tained extended  analytical  reviews  of  the  romances  of  Merlin, 
J\lorte  Arthur,  Guy  of  AYarwick,  Sir  Bevis  of  Hamptoun,  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion,  Roland  and  Ferragus,  Sir  Otuel,  Sir  Ferumbras, 
The  Histoiy  of  the  Seven  Wise  Masters,  Florence  and  Blaunche- 
flour,  Robert  of  Cysille,  Su'  Ismiibras,  Sir  Triamour,  The  Life  of 
Ipomydon,  Sir  Eglamour  of  Artbis,  Lai  le  Fraine,  Sir  Eger,  Sir 
Grahame,  and  Sir  Graysteel,  Sir  Degore,  Roswal  and  Lillian,  and 
Amys  and  Amylion.  Most  of  these  romances  may  be  considered 
of  later  date  than  those  published  by  Ritson  :  Mr.  Ellis,  indeed,  on 
his  title-page  describes  them  as  "  chiefly  written  during  the  early 
part  of  the  fourteenth  century."  Meanwhile,  in  1804,  Walter 
Scott  had  published  at  Edinburgh,  in  royal  8vo.,  the  romance  of 
Tristrem,  from  the  Auchinleck  MS.,  describing  it  on  his  title-page 
as  a  work  of  the  thirteenth  century,  written  in  Scotland,  by  Thomas 
of  Ercildoune,  popularly  called  The  Rhymer,  and  maintaining  that 
theory  in  an  elaborate  and  ingenious  Introduction  and  a  large  body 
of  curious  illustrative  annotation.  One  of  the  Appendices  to  this 
volume,  which  has  been  several  times  reprinted,  contained  an  ac- 
count of  the  contents  of  the  Auchinleck  MS.,  consisting  of  forty- 
four  pieces  in  all  of  ancient  poetry^,  complete  or  imperfect.  Scott, 
it  may  be  remarked,  here  acknowledges  that  there  can  be  little 
doubt  of  the  volume,  which  consists  of  334  leaves  of  parchment, 
the  writing  being  in  double  columns,  in  a  nearly  uniform  hand  of 
the  earlier  part  of  the  fourteenth  century,  haAang  been  compiled 
in  England  ;  and  many  circumstances,  he  says,  lead  him  to  con- 
clude that  the  MS.  has  been  written  in  an  Anglo-Norman  convent. 
In  1810,  Scott's  friend,  Mr.  Henry  Weber,  brought  out  at  Edin- 
burgh, in  3  vols.  8vo.,  his  collection  entitled  Metrical  Romances  of 
the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth  Centuries,  published 
from  Ancient  MSS.  ;  wdth  an  Introduction,  Notes,  and  a  Glossary. 
This  work  contains  the  romances  of  King  Alisaiuider  (8034  lines), 
Sir  Cleges  (540  lines),  Lay  le  Freine  (402  lines),  Richard  Goer 
de  Lion  (713G  lines),  The  Lyfe  of  Ipomydon  (2346  lines).  Amis 
and  Amiloun  (2495  lines),  The  Proces  of  the  Seuyn  Sages  (4002 
lines),  Octouian  Imperator  (1962  lines),  Sir  Amadas  (778  lines), 
and  the  Ilunttyng  of  the  Hare  (270  lines).  The  next  collection 
tliat  appeared  was  that  of  Mr.  Edward  Vernon  Utterson,  entitled 
Select  Pieces  of  Early   Popular  Poetry  ;  republished  prmcipally 


PRINTED   METRICAL   ROMANCES.  231 

from  early  printed  copies  in  the  Black  Letter  ;  2  vols.  8vo.,  Lond 
1817.  It  contained  the  metrical  romances  or  tales  of  Syr  Trya* 
moure  (1593  lines),  Syr  Isenbras  (855  lines),  Syr  Degore  (99b 
Knes),  Syr  Gowghter  (685  lines)  ;  besides  a  number  of  other  pieces 
(occupying  the  second  volume)  which  cannot  be  included  under 
that  denomination.  Next  followed  Mr.  David  Laing's  three  collec- 
tions :  —  the  first,  entitled  Select  Remains  of  the  Ancient  Popular 
Poetry  of  Scotland,  4to.,  Edinb.  1822  ;  containing  twenty-five 
pieces  in  all,  among  which  are  The  Awntyrs  of  Arthure  at  the 
Terne  Wathelyn,  being  another  copy,  from  a  MS.  of  the  fifteenth 
century  in  the  library  of  Lincoln  cathedral,  of  Pinkerton's  Sir 
Gawan  and  Sir  Galaron  of  Galloway  ;  and  the  tale  of  Orfeo  and 
Heurodis  (that  is,  Orpheus  and  Eurychce),  from  the  Auchinleck 
MS.,  being  another  and  very  different  version  of  Ritson's  Sir 
Orpheo  :  the  second,  entitled  Early  Metrical  Tales,  8vo.,  Edinb. 
1826 ;  containing  the  History  of  Sir  Eger,  Sir  Grahame,  and  Sir 
Graysteel  (2860  lines),  The  History  of  Roswall  and  Lillian,  which 
Mr.  Laing  had  already  printed  separately  in  1822  (876  lines),  to- 
gether with  other  poems  and  shorter  pieces,  all  from  earlier  printed 
copies:  the  third,  entitled  The  Knightly  Tale  of  Golagrus  and 
Gawane,  and  other  Ancient  Poems,  black  letter,  4to.,  1837  ;  being  a 
reprint  of  a  unique  volume  in  the  Advocates'  Library,  printed  by 
W.  Chapman  and  A.  Myllar,  in  1508,  and  containing  eleven  pieces 
in  all,  among  which,  besides  Golagrus  and  Gawane,  are  The  Tale 
of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice  (another  version,  attributed  to  Robert 
Henryson),  and  Sir  Eglamour  of  Artoys,  which  is  analyzed  in 
Ellis.  Tin's  last-mentioned  volume  is  extremely  scarce,  only  sev- 
enty-four copies,  most  of  them  more  or  less  damaged,  having  been 
saved  from  a  fire  at  the  printer's.  The  unique  volume  of  which  it 
is  a  reprint,  and  which  is  in  a  very  decayed  state,  was  presented  to 
the  Advocates'  Library  by  a  medical  gentleman  of  Edinburgh, 
about  1788,  and  is  understood  to  have  been  picked  up  somewhere 
in  Ayrshire.  One  of  the  pieces,  The  Porteus  of  Noblenes,  the 
last  in  the  collection,  is  in  prose.  Then  came  the  Rev.  Charles 
Henry  Llartshorne's  Ancient  Metrical  Tales,  printed  chiefly  from 
Original  Sources,  8vo.,  Lond.  1829,  containing,  besides  several 
pieces  in  other  kinds  of  poetry.  The  Romance  of  King  Athelstone, 
Florice  and  Blanchefour  (apparently  from  the  Auchinleck  MS.), 
and  a  portion  of  the  alliterative  romance  of  Willyam  and  the  Wer- 
)Volf.     There  have  also  been  printed,  by  the  Roxburghe  Club,  I^e 


232  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Morte  Arthure  ;  the  Adventures  of  Sir  Launcelot  du  Lake,  4to., 
Lond.  1819,  from  the  Harleian  MS.  2252,  being  one  of  those  an- 
alyzed by  ElHs  ;  Chevelere  Assigne  —  that  is,  the  Chevaher  au 
Cygne,  or  Knight  of  the  Swan  —  from  the  Cotton  MS.  Cal.  A.  2, 
being  a  translation  of  a  portion  of  a  French  romance,  which  is  also 
preserved  (with  a  short  Introduction  and  Glossary  by  Mr.  Utter- 
son),  4to.,  Lond.  1820  ;  The  Ancient  English  Romance  of  Have- 
lok  the  Dane,  accompanied  by  the  French  text,  with  an  Introduc- 
tion, Notes,  and  a  Glossary,  by  Frederic  Madden,  Esq.  (now  Sir 
F.  Madden),  4to.,  Lond.  1828  ;  and  The  Ancient  English  Ro- 
mance of  William  and  the  Werwolf,  edited,  with  an  Introduction 
and  Glossary,  by  Sir  Frederic  Madden,  4to.,  Loud.  1832  :  by  the 
Bannatyne  Club,  The  Buik  of  Alexander  the  Great,  reprinted  from 
the  jNIetrical  Romance  printed  at  Edinburgh,  by  Arbuthnot,  about 
the  year  1580,  4to.,  Edinb.  1834  ;  The  Seven  Sages,  in  Scotch 
metre,  by  John  Rolland  of  Dalkeith,  reprinted  from  the  edition  of 
1578,  4to.,  Edinb.  1837  ;  The  Scottish  Metrical  Romance  of  Lan- 
celot du  Lak,  from  a  MS.  of  the  Fifteenth  Century  (edited  by 
Joseph  Stevenson,  Esq.),  4to.,  Edinb.  1839  ;  and  Syr  Gawayne, 
a  Collection  of  Ancient  Romance  Poems,  by  Scottish  and  English 
Authors,  relating  to  that  celebrated  Knight  of  the  Round  Table, 
with  an  Introduction,  Notes,  and  a  Glossary,  by  Sir  Frederic  Mad- 
den (including  Syr  Gawayn  and  the  Grene  Knyght,  The  Awnt}TS 
of  Arthure  at  the  Terne  Wathelyne,  The  Knightly  Tale  of  Go- 
lagros  and  GaAvane,  and  an  Appendix  of  shorter  pieces),  4to., 
Lond.  1839  :  by  the  Maitland  Club,  Sir  Beves  of  Hamtoun,  a 
Metrical  Romance,  now  first  edited  from  the  Auchinleck  MS.  (by 
W.  B.  D.  D.  Turnbull,  Esq.),  4to.,  Edinb.  1838  :  by  the  Banna- 
tyne and  ]\Iaitland  Clubs  in  conjunction,  Clariodus,  a  Metrical  Ro- 
mance, from  a  ?kIS.  of  the  Sixteenth  Century  (edited  by  Edward 
Piper,  Esq.),  4to.,  Edinb.  1830  :  by  the  Abbotsford  Club,  the  Ro- 
mances of  Rowland  and  Vernagu,  and  Otuel,  from  the  Auchinleck 
MS.  (edited  by  A.  Nicholson,  Esq.),  4to.,  1836  ;  and  Arthour  and 
Merlin,  a  Metrical  Romance,  from  the  Auchinleck  MS.  (edited  by 
Mr.  Turnbull),  4to.,  1838  :  and  by  the  Camden  Society,  Three 
Early  English  Metrical  Romances,  with  an  Inti-oduction  and  Glos- 
sary, edited  by  John  Robson,  Esq.,  4to.,  Lond.  1842  ;  the  three 
Rdinaiices  (which  are  edited  from  a  MS.  of  the  fifteenth  centuiy, 
calK'd  the  Ireland  MS.  from  its  former  possessor  of  that  name) 
being  The  Antm's  of  Arther  at  the  Tamewathelan  (other  versions 


HISTORY   OF   THE   ENGLISH  METRICAL  ROMANCE.     233 

of  which,  as  ah'eady  noticed,  have  been  printed  by  Pinkerton, 
Laing,  and  Madden  ^) ;  Sir  Amadace  (a  different  version  of  which 
is  in  Weber's  Collection)  ;  and  The  Avowynge  of  King  Arther, 
Sir  GaAvan,  Sir  Kaye,  and  Sir  Bawdewyn  of  Bretan,  which  is 
here  printed  for  the  first  time. 


HISTORY   OF   THE   ENGLISH   METRICAL   ROMANCE. 

.^Although,  however,  it  thus  appears  that  a  very  considerable 
X  body  of  our  early  romantic  poetry  has  now  been  made  ^generally 
accessible,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  only  a  small  proportion  of  what 
has  been  printed  is  derived  from  manuscripts  of  even  so  early  a 
date  as  the  fourteenth  century,  and  that  many  of  the  volumes 
which   have  just  been  enumerated  are   merely  reimpressions  of 

1  Mr.  Robson  (who  is  rather  sparing  of  distinct  references)  says  (Introduction, 
p.  xii.)  that  this  romance  was  first  printed  by  Pinkerton  in  liis  Scottish  Ballads  ; 
remarlcing  again  (p.  xvi.)  that  "  Pinkerton  publislied  it  as  a  Scottish  ballad."  The 
collection,  in  fact,  in  which  Pinkerton  published  it,  as  mentioned  above,  was  entitled 
Scotish  Poems,  1792.  The  curious  notice  of  this  proceeding  by  Eitson,  to  which 
Mr.  Robson  refers,  occurs  in  his  Ancient  English  Metrical  Romances,  vol.  iii.  p. 
230,  in  a  note  on  Ywaine  and  Gawin,  where  he  says,  "  Two  other  romances  on  the 
same  subject,  but  in  a  dialect  and  metre  peculiar  to  Scotland,  are  printed  in  Pinkei'- 
ton's  Scotish  Poems  ;  the  one  from  an  edition  at  Edinburgh  in  1508,  the  other  from 
a  MS.,  the  property  of  the  present  editor,  which  the  said  Pinkerton  came  hy  very 
dishonestly."  It  appears  from  a  letter  of  Ritson's,  dated  December  26,  1792,  pub- 
lished in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  January,  1793  (vol.  xliii.  p.  32),  that  he  was 
then  in  possession  of  the  MS.,  which  had  belonged  to  his  friend  Mr.  Baynes,  of  Gray's 
Inn,  and  that  his  complaint  against  Pinkerton  was,  that  the  latter  had  printed  the 
poem  from  a  transcript  made  by  a  third  party  many  years  before,  which  transcript 
the  gentleman  who  made  it  declared  he  had  never  considered  fit  for  the  press ; 
assuring  Ritson,  moreover,  on  his  refusal  to  allow  a  collation  of  the  original,  for 
which  Pinkerton  had  applied,  that  the  piece  should  not  be  printed  by  the  latter  at 
all.  Pinkerton,  in  his  Preface,  or  Preliminaries  (vol.  i.  p.  xxx.),  merely  says  that 
the  poem  "  was  copied  many  years  ago  by  a  learned  friend,  from  a  MS.  belonging 
to  Mr.  Baynes,  of  Gray's  Inn,  who  was  a  noted  collector  of  romances  of  chivalry." 
The  MS.  afterwards  got  into  the  possession  of  the  late  Mr.  Douce,  and  is  now,  with 
the  rest  of  his  collection,  in  the  Bodleian  Library.  In  another  place  (p.  xviii.)  Mr. 
Robson  observes,  "  Sir  Walter  Scott,  where  he  alludes  to  this  poem  in  his  Min 
BTEELSY,  asserts  that  it  is  not  prior  to  the  reign  of  James  the  Fifth  of  Scotland ; 
<ut  in  his  Introduction  to  Sir  Teistrem  he  is  satisfied  that  it  was  written  long 
before  the  conclusion  of  the  thirteenth  century."  The  passages  in  which  Scott 
advances  these  contradictory  opinions  are  in  the  Mixstuelsy,  iv.  1-47,  and  Sib 
Tristrem,  p.  57  (Poetical  Works,  edition  of  18oo). 

VOL.  I.  30 


234  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

compositions  wliicli  cannot  be  traced,  at  least  in  the  form  in  whicn 
we  have  them,  beyond  the  sixteenth.  Of  the  undoubted  produce 
of  the  thirteenth  century  in  this  kind  of  writing  we  have  very 
Httle,  if  we  except  the  romances  of  Kyng  Horn,  Sir  Tristrem, 
Ilaveloc,  and  Sir  Gawaine,  with  perhaps  two  or  three  others  in 
llitson  and  Weber.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  many  of  the 
manuscripts  of  later  date  are  substantially  transcripts  from  earher 
ones  ;  but  in  such  cases,  even  when  we  have  the  general  form  of 
the  poems  as  first  written  tolerably  well  preserved,  the  language 
is  almost  always  more  or  less  modernized.  The  history  of  the 
English  metrical  romance  appears  shortly  to  be,  —  that  at  least  the 

'  first  examples  of  it  were  translations  from  the  French ;  —  that 
there  is  no  eA^dence  of  any  such  having"l5een  produced  before  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century  ;  —  that  in  the  thirteenth  century 
were  composed  the  earfiest  of  those  we  now  possess  in  their 
original  form ;  —  that  in  the  fourteenth  the  Enghsh  took  the  place 
of  the  French  metrical  romance  with  all  classes,  and  that  this  was 
^    the  era  alike  of  its  highest  ascendency  and  of  its  most  abundant 

I  and  felicitous  production  ;  —  that  in  the  fifteenth  it  was  supplanted 
''by  another  species  of  poetry  among  the  more  educated  classes, 
and  had  also  to  contend  with  another  rival  in  the  prose  romance, 
but  that,  nevertheless,  it  still  continued  to  be  produced,  although 
in  less  quantity  and  of  an  inferior  fabric,  —  mostly,  indeed,  if  not 
exclusively,  by  the  mere  modernization  of  older  compositions,  — 
for  the  use  of  the  common  people  ;  —  and  that  it  did  not  altogether 
cease  to  be  read  and  written  till  after  the  commencement  of  the 

sixteenth.  •'From  that  time  the  taste  for  this  earliest  form  of  our 

])()etical  literature  (at  least  counting  fi'om  the  Norman  Conquest) 
lay  asleep  in  the  national  heart  till  it  was  reawakened  in  our  own 
day  by  Scott,  after  the  lapse  of  three  hundred  years.  But  the 
metrical  romance  was  then  become  quite  another  sort  of  thing 
than  it  had  been  in  its  proper  era,  throughout  the  whole  extent  of 
which,  while  the  story  was  generally  laid  in  a  past  age,  the  man- 
ners and  state  of  society  described  were,  notwithstanding,  in  most 
respects  those  of  the  poet's  and  of  his  readers'  or  hearers'  own 
time.  This  was  strictly  the  case  with  the  poems  of  this  descrip- 
tion ^^hi(•h  were  producecF  in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fif- 
teenth centuries  ;  and  even  in  those*  which  were  accommodated  to 
the  popular  taste  of  a  later  day  much  more  tlian  tlie  language  had 
to  be  partially  modernized  to  preserve  them  in  tlnor.      Wlien  this 


THE   ENGLISH  METRICAL   ROMANCE.  235 

could  no  longer  be  done  without  too  much  violence  to  the  com- 
position, or  an  entire  destruction  of  its  original  character,  the 
metrical  romance  lost  its  hold  of  the  public  mind,  and  was  allowed 
to  drop  into  oblivion.  There  had  been  very  little  of  mere  anti- 
quarianism  in  the  interest  it  had  inspired  for  three  centuries.  It 
had  pleased  principally  as  a  picture  or  reflection  of  manners, 
usages,  and  a  general  spirit  of  society  still  existing,  or  supposed 
to  exist.  And  this  is  perhaps  the  condition  upon  which  any  poetry 
must  ever  expect  to  be  extensively  and  permanently  popular.  We 
need  not  say  that  the  temporary  success  of  the  metrical  romance, 
as  revived  by  Scott,  was  in  great  part  owing  to  his  appeal  to  quite 
a  different,  almost  an  opposite,  state  of  feeling,/' 

We  give  no  specimens  of  our  early  English  metrical  romances, 
because  no  extracts  such  as  we  could  afford  room  for  from  one  or 
two  of  them  could  do  much,  or  almost  anytliing,  to  convey  a  notion 
of  the  general  character  of  these  compositions,  y^lthough  written 
in  verse,  they  are  essentially  not  so  much  poenis  as  histories,  or 
narrative  works.  At  least,  what  poetry  is  in  them  lies  almost 
always  in  the  story  ratlier  than  in  anything  else.  The  form  of 
verse  is  manifestly  adopted  chiefly  as  an  aid  to  the  memory  in 
their  recitation.  Even  the  musical  character  which  the  romance 
poetry  is  supposed  originally  to  have  had,  if  it  ever  was  attempted 
to  be  maintained  in  long  compositions  of  this  description  (which  it 
is  difficult  to  believe),  appears  very  early  to  have  been  abandoned. 
Hence,  when  reading  became  a  more  common  accomplishment, 
and  recitation  fell  into  comparative  disuse,  the  verse  came  to  be 
regarded  as  merely  an  impediment  to  the  free  and  easy  flow  of  the 
story,  and  was,  by  general  consent,  laid  aside.  Such  being  the 
case,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  an  old  metrical  romance  is 
hardly  to  be  better  represented  by  extracts  than  an  architectural 
structure  would  be  by  a  bit  of  one  of  the  walls.  Even  the  more 
ornamented  or  animated  passages  derive  most  of  their  effect  from 
the  place  they  occupy,  or  the  connection  in  which  they  stand  with 
the  res^  The  only  way,  therefore,  of  exhibiting  any  of  these 
compositions  intelligibly  or  fairly  is  to  print  the  whole,  or  at  the 
least,  if  only  portions  of  the  story  are  produced  in  the  words  of 
the  original,  to  give  the  rest  of  it  —  somewhat  abridged,  it  may  be 
—  in  modern  language.  This  latter  method  has  been  very  suc- 
:;essfully  followed  by  Ellis  in  his  Specimens,  which  work  will 
oe  found  to  take  a  general  survey  of  nearly  the  whole  field  of 


236  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE 

fiction  with  wliicli  our  early  English  metrical  romances  are  con 
versant. 

/Another  thing  to  be  observed  of  these  compositions  is,  that  thej' 
are  in  very  few  cases  ascribed  to  any  particular  writer.  Nor  have 
they,  in  general,  any  such  peculiarity  of  style  as  might  mark  and 
distinguish  theu'  authorship.  A  few  only  may  be  accounted  ex- 
ceptions, —  among  them  the  romance  of  Tristrem,  —  and,  if  so, 
Ave  may  understand  wdiat  Robert  de  Brunne  means  when  he 
appears  to  speak  of  its  English  as  strange  and  quaint ;  but  usually 
their  style  is  merely  that  of  the  age  in  which  they  were  written 
They  differ  from  one  another,  in  short,  rather  in  the  merit  of  the 
story  itself  than  by  anything  in  the  manner  of  telling  it.  The 
expression  and  the  rhyme  are  both,  for  the  most  part,  whatever 
comes  first  to  hand.  The  verse,  irregular  and  rugged  enough 
withal,  is  kept  in  such  shape  and  order  as  it  has  by  a  crowd  of 
tautologies,  expletives,  and  other  blank  phrases  serAdceable  only 
for  filling  up  a  gap,  and  is  altogether  such  verse  as  might  appar- 
ently be  almost  improvised  or  chanted  extempore.  These  produc- 
tions, therefore,  are  scarcely  to  be  considered  as  forming  any  part 
of  our  literature,  properly  so  called,  interesting  as  they  are  on 
many  accounts,  —  for  the  warm  and  vigorous  imagination  that 
often  revels-  in  them,  for  their  vivid  expression  of  the  feelings  and 
modes  of  thought  of  a  remote  age,  for  the  light  they  throw  upon 
the  history  of  the  national  manners  and  mind,  and  even  of  the 
language  in  its  first  rude  but  bold  essays  to  mimic  the  solemnities 
of  literary  composition.  /^ 


METRICAL   CHRONICLE   OF   ROBERT  OF   GLOUCESTER. 

Nearly  what  Biography  is  to  History  are  the  metrical  romances 
to  the  versified  Chronicle  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,  a  narrative  of 
Britisli  and  English  affairs  from  tlie  time  of  Brutus  to  the  end  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  IH.,  which,  from  events  to  which  it  alludes, 
must  have  been  written  after  1297.^  All  that  is  known  of  the 
iuitlior  is  that  he  was  a  monk  of  the  abbey  of  Gloucester.  His 
Chronicle  was  printed — "faithfully,  I  dare  say,"  says  Tyrwliitt, 

^  This  has  been  shown  by  Sir  F.  Madden  in  his  Introduction  to  Haveloc  the 
Dane,  p.  111. 


ROBERT   OF   GLOUCESTER.  237 

*'  but  from  incorrect  manuscripts  "  —  by  Hearne,  in  2  vols.  8vo., 
at  Oxford,  in  1724  ;  and  a  reimpression  of  this  edition  was  pro- 
duced at  London  in  1810.  The  work  in  the  earher  part  of  it  may 
be  considered  a  free  translation  of  Geoflfi'ey  of  Monmouth's  Latin 
History ;  but  it  is  altogether  a  very  rude  and  lifeless  composition. 
"  This  rhyming  chronicle,"  says  Warton,  "  is  totally  destitute  ot 
art  or  imagination.  The  author  has  clothed  the  fables  of  Geoffi'e;;^ 
of  Monmouth  in  rhyme,  which  have  often  a  more  poetical  air  in 
Geoffrey's  prose."  Tyrwhitt  refers  to  Robert  of  Gloucester  in 
proof  of  the  fact  that  the  English  language  had  already  acquired  a 
strong  tincture  of  French  ;  Warton  observes  that  the  language  of 
this  writer  is  full  of  Saxonisms,  and  not  more  easy  or  intelligible 
than  that  of  what  he  calls  "  the  Norman  Saxon  poems  "  of  Kyng 
Horn  and  others  which  he  believes  to  belong  to  the  preceding  cen- 
tury. 

Robert  of  Gloucester's  Chronicle,  as  printed,  is  In  long  lines  of 
fourteen  syllables,  which,  however,  are  generally  divisible  into  two 
of  eight  and  six,  and  were  perhaps  intended  to  be  so  written  and 
read;  The  language  appears  to  be  marked  by  the  peculiarities  of 
West  Country  English.  Ample  specimens  are  given  by  Warton 
and  Ellis ;  we  shall  not  encumber  our  limited  space  with  extracts 
which  are  recommended  by  no  attraction  either  in  the  matter  or 
manner.  We  will  only  transcribe,  as  a  sample  of  the  language  at 
the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Edward  L,  and  for  the  sake  of 
the  curious  evidence  it  supplies  in  confirmation  of  a  fact  to  which 
we  have  more  than  once  had  occasion  to  draw  attention,  the  short 
passage  about  the  prevalence  of  the  French  tongue  in  England 
down  even  to  this  date,  more  than  two  centuries  after  the  Con- 
qiiest :  — 

"  Thus  come  lo !  Engelonde  into  Normannes  honde, 
And  the  Normans  ne  couthe  speke  the  bote  her  owe  speche, 
And  speke  French  as  dude  atom,  and  here  chyldren  dude  al  so  teche, 
So  that  heymen  of  thys  lond,  that  of  her  blod  come, 
Hokleth  alle  tliuike  speche  that  hii  of  hem  nome. 
Vor  bote  a  man  couthe  French,  me  tolth  of  hym  well  lute  : 
Ac  lowe  men  holdeth  to  Englyss  and  to  her  kunde  speche  yute. 
Ich  wene  ther  be  ne  man  in  world  contreyes  none 
That  ne  holdeth  to  her  kunde  speche,  but  Engelond  one. 
Ac  wel  me  wot  vor  to  conne  bothe  wel  yt  ys, 
Vor  the  more  that  a  man  con  the  more  worth  lie  ys." 


238  EXGLISri    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

That  is,  literally :  —  Thus  lo  !  England  came  into  the  hand  of 
the  Normans :  and  the  Normans  could  not  speak  then  but  theii 
own  speech,  and  spoke  French  as  they  did  at  home,  and  their  chil- 
dren did  all  so  teach ;  so  that  high  men  of  this  land,  that  of  their 
blood  come,  retain  all  the  same  speech  that  they  of  them  took. 
For,  unless  a  man  know  French,  one  talketh  of  him  little.  But 
low  men  hold  to  English,  and  to  their  natural  speech  yet.  I  im- 
agine there  be  no  people  in  any  country  of  the  world  that  do  not 
hold  to  their  natural  speech,  but  in  England  alone.  But  well  I  wot 
it  is  well  for  to  know  both ;  for  the  more  that  a  man  knows,  the 
more  worth  he  is. 

A  short  composition  of  Robert  of  Gloucester's  on  the  Mar- 
tyrdom of  Thomas  a  Beket  was  printed  by  the  Percy  Society  in 
1845. 


ROBERT  MANNYNG,  OR  DE  BRUNNE. 

Along  with  this  chronicle  may  he  mentioned  the  similar  per- 
formance of  Robert  ]Mannyng,  otherwise  called  Robert  de  Brunne 
(from  his  birthplace,^  Brunne,  or  Bourne,  near  Deping,  or  Market 
Deeping,  in  Lincolnshire),  belonging  as  it  does  to  a  date  not  quite 
half  a  century  later.  The  Avork  of  Robert  de  Brunne  is  in  two 
parts,  both  translated  from  the  French  :  the  first,  coming  down  to 
the  death  of  Cadwalader,  from  Wace's  Brut ;  the  second,  extend- 
ing to  the  death  of  Edward  L,  from  the  French  or  Romance 
chronicle  written  by  Piers,  or  Peter,  de  Langtoft,  a  canon  regular 
of  St.  Austin,  at  Bridlington,  in  Yorkshire,  who  has  been  men- 
tioned in  a  former  page,^  and  who  aj^pears  to  have  lived  at  the 
same  time  with  De  Brunne.  Langtoft,  whose  chronicle,  though  it 
has  not  been  printed,  is  preserved  in  more  than  one  manuscript, 
begins  with  Brutus  ;  but  De  Brunne,  for  sufficient  reasons  it  is 
probable,  preferred  Wace  for  the  earlier  portion  of  the  story,  and 
only  took  to  his  own  countryman  and  contemporary  when  deserted 
by  his  older  Norman  guide.  It  is  the  latter  ])art  of  his  woi-k,  liow- 
ever,  which,  owing  to  the  subject,  has  been  thought  most  valuable 

^  Sec  a  valuable  note  on  De  Brunne  in  Sir  Frederic  Madden's  Haveloc,  Intro- 
luction,  p.  xiii. 
2  See  ante,  p.  187. 


ROBERT  MANNYNG,  OR  DE  BRUNNE.        239 

or  interesting  in  modern  times  ;  it  has  been  printed  by  Hearne, 
under  the  title  of  Peter  Langtoft's  Chronicle  (as  illustrated  and 
improved  by  Robert  of  Brunne),  from  the  death  of  Cadwalader  to 
the  end  of  K.  Edward  the  First's  reign  ;  transcribed,  and  now 
first  published,  from  a  MS.  in  the  Inner  Temple  Library,  2  vols. 
8vo.,  Oxford,  1725 ;  [reprinted  London,  1810.]  This  part,  like 
the  original  French  of  Langtoft,  is  in  Alexandrine  verse  of  twelve 
syllables  ;  the  earlier  part,  which  remains  in  manuscript,  is  in  ihe 
same  octosyllabic  verse  in  which  its  original,  Wace's  chronicle,  ia 
written.  The  work  is  stated  in  a  Latin  note  at  the  end  of  the  MS. 
to  have  been  finished  in  1338.  Ritson  (Bibliographia  Poetica,  p. 
33)  is  very  wroth  with  Warton  for  describing  De  Brunne  as  hav- 
ing "  scarcely  more  poetry  than  Robert  of  Gloucester;"  —  "which 
only  proves,"  Ritson  says,  "  his  want  of  taste  or  judgment."  It 
may  be  admitted  that  De  Brunne's  chronicle  exhibits  the  language 
in  a  considerably  more  advanced  state  than  that  of  Gloucester,  and 
also  that  he  appears  to  have  more  natural  fluency  than  his  prede- 
cessor ;  his  work  also  possesses  greater  interest  from  his  occasionally 
speaking  in  his  own  person,  and  from  his  more  frequent  expansion 
and  improvement  of  his  French  original  by  new  matter  ;  but  for 
poetry,  it  would  probably  require  a  "  taste  or  judgment "  equal  to 
Ritson's  own  to  detect  much  of  it.  It  is  in  the  Prologue  prefixed 
to  the  first  part  of  his  Chronicle  that  the  famous  passage  occurs 
about  the  romance  of  Sir  Tristrem,  its  strange  or  quaint  English, 
and  its  authors,  Thomas  and  Ercildoune  (assumed  to  be  the  same 
person),  and  Kendale,  which  has  given  rise  to  so  much  speculation 
and  controversy.  De  Brunne  is  also  the  author  of  two  other  rhym- 
ing translations :  one,  of  the  Latin  prose  treatise  of  his  contem- 
porary, the  Cardinal  Bonaventura,  De  Coena  et  Passione  Domini, 
et  Poenis  S.  Marine  Virginis,  which  title  he  converts  into  Medyta- 
ciuns  of  the  Soper  of  our  Lorde  Jhesu,  and  also  of  his  Passyun, 
and  eke  of  the  Peynes  of  hys  swete  Modyr  mayden  Marye ;  the 
other  a  very  free  paraphrase  of  what  has  commonly  been  described 
as  the  Manuel  de  Pechd  (or  Manual  of  Sin)  of  Bishop  Grostete, 
but  is,  in  fact,  the  work  with  the  same  title  written  by  William  de 
Wadington.-'^  Copioiis  extracts  from  these,  and  also  from  othei' 
translations  of  which  it  is  thought  that  De  Brunne  may  possibly 
be  the  author,  are  given  by  Warton,  who,  if  he  has  not  sufficiently 

1  See  ante,  p.  185 ;  and  notes  by  Price  and  Madden  to  Warton,  i.  56. 


240  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

appreciated  the  poetical  merits  of  this  writer,  has  at  any  rate 
awarded  him  a  space  which  ought  to  satisfy  his  most  ardent  ad- 
mirers.^ 


ROLLE,    OR   HAMPOLE.  —  DA^aE. 

Other  obscure  writei's  in  verse  of  the  earher  part  of  the  four- 
teenth century  were  Richard  Rolle,  often  called  Richard  Hampole. 
or  of  Hampole,  a  hermit  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustine,  who  lived 
in  or  near  the  nunnery  of  Hampole,  four  miles  from  Doncaster, 
and  after  his  death,  in  1849,  was  honored  as  a  saint,  and  who  is  the 
author,  or  reputed  author,  of  various  metrical  paraphrases  of  parts 
of  Scripture,  and  other  prolix  tlieological  effusions,  all  of  Avhich 
tliat  are  preserved  (Ritson  has  enumerated  seventeen  of  them) 
slumber  in  manuscript,  and  are  not  likely  to  be  disturbed ;  and 
Adam  Davie,  who  rather  preceded  Rolle,  being  reckoned  the  only 
poet  belonging  to  the  reign  of  Edward  II.,  and  to  whom  are  also 
attributed  a  number  of  religious  pieces,  preserved  only  in  one 
manuscript,  much  damaged,  in  tlie  Bodleian,  besides  the  metrical 
romance  of  the  Life  of  Alexander,  of  which  two  copies  exist,  one 
in  the  Bodleian,  the  other  in  tlie  Library  of  Lincoln's  Inn  ;  but 
there  is  every  reason  for  believing  that  this  last-mentioned  work, 
which  is  printed  in  Weber's  collection  under  the  title  of  Kyng 
Alisaunder,  and  is  one  of  the  most  spirited  of  our  early  romances, 
is  by  another  autlior.  There  is  no  ground  for  assigning  it  to  Davie 
except  the  circumstance  of  the  Bodleian  copy  being  bound  up  v\-ith 
his  Visions,  Legends,  Scripture  Histories,  and  other  much  more 
pious  than  poetical  lucubrations ;  and  its  style  is  as  little  in  his  way 
as  its  subject. 


LAWRENCE  MINOT. 

Putting  aside  the  authors  of  some  of  the  best  of  the   early 
metrical  romances,  whose  names  are  generally  or  universally  un- 
known, perhaps  the  earliest  writer  of  English  verse  who  deserves 
1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  i.  pp.  55-70. 


LAWKENCE   MINOT.  241 

the  name  of  a  poet  is  Lawrence  Minot,  who  Hved  and  wrote  about 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  of  the  reign  of  Edward 
III.  His  ten  poems  in  celebration  of  the  battles  and  victories  of 
that  king,  preserved  in  the  Cotton  MS.  Galba  E.  ix.,  which  the 
old  catalogue  had  described  as  a  manuscript  of  Chaucer,  the  com- 
piler having  been  misled  by  the  name  of  some  former  proprietor, 
Richard  Chawfer,  inscribed  on  the  volume,  were  discovered  by 
Tyrwhitt  while  collecting  materials  for  his  edition  of  the  Canter- 
bury Tales,  in  a  note  to  the  Essay  on  the  Language  and  Versifica- 
tion of  Chaucer  prefixed  to  which  work  their  existence  was  first 
mentioned.  This  was  in  1775.  In  1781  some  specimens  of  them 
were  given  (out  of  their  chronological  place)  by  Warton  in  the 
third  volume  of  his  History  of  Poetry.  Finally,  in  1796,  the  whole 
were  published  by  Ritson  under  the  title  of  Poems  written  anno 
McccLii.,  by  Lawrence  Minot ;  with  Introductory  Dissertations  on 
the  Scottish  Wars  of  Edward  III.,  on  his  claim  to  the  throne  of 
France,  and  Notes  and  Glossary,  8vo.,  London  ;  and  a  reprint  of 
this  volume  appeared  in  1825.  Of  the  250  pages,  or  thereby,  of 
which  it  consists,  only  about  50  are  occupied  by  the  poems,  which 
are  ten  in  number,  their  subjects  being  the  Battle  of  Halidon  Hill 
(fought  1333)  ;  the  Battle  of  Bannockburn  (1S14),  or  a'ather  the 
manner  in  which  that  defeat,  sustained  by  his  fiither,  had  been 
avenged  by  Edward  III.- ;  Echvard's  first  Invasion  of  France 
(1339)  ;  the  Sea-fight  in  the  Swine,  or  Zwin^  (1340)  ;  the  Siege 
of  Tournay  (the  same  year)  ;  the  Landing  of  the  English  King 
at  La  Hogue,  on  his  Expedition  in  1346  ;  the  Siege  of  Calais  (the 
same  year)  ;  the  Battle  of  Neville's  Cross  (the  same  year)  ;  the 
Sea-fight  with  the  Spaniards  ofi^  Winchelsea  (1350)  ;  and  the  Tak- 
ing of  the  Guisnes  (1352).  It  is  from  this  last  date  that  Ritson, 
somewhat  unwarrantably,  assumes  that  all  the  poems  were  written 
in  that  year.  As  they  are  very  various  in  their  form  and  manner, 
it  is  more  probable  that  they  were  produced  as  the  occasions  of 
them  arose,  and  therefore  that  they  ought  rather  to  be  assigned  to 
the  interval  between  1333  and  1352.  They  are  remai^kable,  if 
not  for  any  poetical  qualities  of  a  high  order,  yet  for  a  precision 
and  selectness,  as  well  as  a  force,  of  expression,  previously,  so  far 
as  is  known,  unexampled  in  English  verse.  Thei'e  is  a  true  mar- 
tial tone  and  spirit  too  in  them,  which  reminds  us  of  the  best  of 
our  old  heroic  ballads,  while  it  is  better  sustained,  and  accompanied 

^  To  the  south  of  tlie  Isle  of  Cadsand,  at  the  mouth  of  the  West  Srheldt. 
VOL    I.  31 


242  e:nglish  literature  and  language. 

with  more  refinement  of  style,  than  it  usually  is  in  these  popular 
and  anon}mious  compositions.  As  a  sample  we  will  transcribe  the 
one  on  Edward's  first  expedition  to  France,  omitting  a  prologue, 
which  is  in  a  diflTerent  measure,  and  modernizing  the  spelHng  where 
it  does  not  affect  the  rhyme  or  rhythm :  — 

Edward,  owre  comely  king, 
In  Brabhnd  has  his  woning  * 

With  many  comely  knight ; 
And  in  that  land,  truely  to  tell, 
Ordains  he  still  for  to  dwell 

To  time  ^  he  think  to  fight. 

Now  God,  that  is  of  mightes  mast,' 
Grant  him  grace  of  the  Holy  Ghast 

His  heritage  to  mn  ; 
And  Mary  Moder,  of  mercy  free, 
Save  onr  king  and  his  meny  * 

Fro  sorrow,  shame,  and  sin. 

Thus  in  Braband  has  he  been, 
Where  he  before  was  seldom  seen 

For  to  prove  theii-  japes  ;  ^ 
Now  no  langer  will  he  spare, 
Bot  unto  France  fast  will  he  fare 

To  comfort  him  with  grapes. 

Fm-th  he  fared  into  France  ; 
God  save  him  fro  mischance. 

And  all  his  company ! 
The  noble  Duke  of  Braband 
With  him  went  into  that  land, 

Ready  to  live  or  die. 

Then  the  rich  flower  de  lice  ® 
Wan  there  full  httle  price  ; 

Fast  he  fled  for  feared  : 
The  right  heir  of  that  countree 
Is  comen,''  with  all  his  knightes  free, 

To  shake  him  by  the  beard. 

1  Dwelling.  -  Till  tlie  time.  ^  Most  of  might.  *  Followers 

6  Jeers.  '^  Fleur  de  lis.  ''  Come. 


LAWRENCE  IVnNOT.  243 

Sir  Philip  the  Valays  ^ 
Wit  liis  men  ia  tho  days 

To  battle  had  he  thought :  ^ 
He  bade  his  men  them  purvey 
Withouten  longer  delay ; 

But  he  ne  held  it  nought. 

He  brought  folk  full  gi-eat  won,' 
Aye  seven  agains  *  one, 

That  full  well  weaponed  were, 
Bot  soon  when  he  heard  ascry  ^ 
That  king  Edward  was  near  thereby, 

Then  durst  he  nought  come  near. 

In  that  morning  fell  a  mist. 

And  when  our  Englishmen  it  wist, 

It  changed  all  their  cheer  ; 
Our  king  unto  God  made  his  boon,® 
And  God  sent  him  good  comfort  soon ; 

The  weader  wex  full  clear. 

Oui'  king  and  his  men  held  the  field 
Stalworthly  with  spear  and  shield, 

And  thought  to  win  his  right ; 
With  lordes  and  with  knightes  keen, 
And  other  doughty  men  bydeen  '' 

That  war  full  frek  «  to  fight. 

When  Sir  Philip  of  France  heard  tell 
That  king  Edward  in  field  wald  ^  dwell, 

Then  gained  him  no  glee  :  ^° 
He  traisted  of  no  better  boot,^^ 
Bot  both  on  horse  and  on  foot 

He  hasted  him  to  flee. 

1  Philip  VI.  de  Valois,  King  of  France. 

2  The  meaning  seems  to  be,  "  informed  his  men  in  those  days  that  he  had  a  oesigB 
to  fight."     Unless,  indeed,  ivit  be  a  mistranscription  of  with. 

^  Number.  *  Against.  °  Report. 

^  Prayer,  request.  —  Rits.     Perhaps,  rather,  vow  or  bond. 

7  Perhaps  "  besides."     The  word  is  of  common  occurrence,  but  of  doubtful  ot 
various  meaning. 

8  Were  full  eager.  ^  Would  (was  dwelling). 

1°  The  meaning  seems  to  be,  "  then  no  glee,  or  joy,  was  given  him  "  (accessit  et). 
11  He  trusted  in  no  better  expedient,  or  alternative. 


244  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE 

It  seemed  he  was  feared  for  strokes 
When  he  did  fell  his  greate  oaks 

Obout  ^  his  pavilioiin  ; 
Abated  was  then  all  his  pride, 
For  langer  there  durst  he  nought  bide  ; 

His  boast  was  brought  all  down. 

The  king  of  Berne  ^  had  cares  cold, 
That  was  fuU  hardy  and  bold 

A  steed  to  umstride  :  ^ 
He  and  the  king  als  *  of  Naveme  ^ 
"War  fair  feared  ®  in  the  fern 

Then-  hevids  ^  for  to  hide. 

And  leves  ^  well  it  is  no  lie, 
And  field  hat  ^  Flemangry  i° 

That  kmg  Edward  was  in, 
With  princes  that  were  stiff  and  bold, 
And  dukes  that  were  doughty  told  " 

In  battle  to  begin. 

The  princes,  that  were  rich  on  raw,*^ 
Gert  ^^  nakers  ^*  strike,  and  trumpes  blaw, 

And  made  mirth  at  their  might, 
Both  alblast  ^^  and  many  a  bow 
War  ready  railed  ^®  upon  a  row, 

And  full  frek  for  to  fight. 

Gladly  they  gave  meat  and  drink. 
So  that  they  suld  the  better  swink," 

The  wight  ^^  men  that  there  were. 
Sir  Philip  of  France  fled  for  doubt, 
And  hied  him  hame  with  all  his  rout : 

Coward  !  God  Give  him  care  ! 

For  there  then  had  the  lily  flower 
Lorn  all  halely  *®  his  honour, 


*  About.  '^  Bohemia.  ^  Bestride.  *  Also. 

*  Navarre.  ®  Were  fairly  frightened.  "  Heads. 

8  Believe.  ^  "Was  called.  i"  The  village  of  La  Flamengrie 

"  Reckoned.  ^-  Apparently,  "arranged  richly  clad  in  a  row." 

13  Caused  i*  Tynibals.  ^^  Arblast,  or  crossbow. 

16  Placed  1"  Should  the  bettor  labor,     i^  gtout.  "  Lost  whoUv 


ALLITERATIVE   VERSE.  — PIERS   PLOUGHMAN.  245 

That  so  gat  fled  ^  for  feai'd  ; 
Bot  our  king  Edward  come  full  still  ^ 
When  that  he  trowed  no  harm  him  till,^ 

And  keeped  him  in  the  beard.* 


ALLITERATIVE    VERSE.  —  PIERS  PLOUGHMAN. 

It  may  be  observed  that  Minot's  verses  are  thickly  sprinkled 
with  what  is  called  alliteration^  or  the  repetition  of  words  having 
the  same  commencing  letter,  either  immediately  after  one  another, 
or  with  the  intervention  only  of  one  or  two  other  words  generally 
miemphatic  or  of  subordinate  importance.  Alliteration,  which  we 
find  here  combined  with  rhyme,  was  in  an  earlier  stage  of  our 
poetry  employed,  more  systematically,  as  the  substitute  for  that 
decoration,  —  the  recurrence,  at  certain  regular  intervals,  of  like 
beginnings,  serving  the  same  purpose  which  is  now  accomplished 
by  what  Milton  has  contemptuously  called  "  the  jingling  sound  of 
like  endings."  To  the  English  of  the  period  before  the  Conquest, 
until  its  very  latest  stage,  rhyme  was  unknown,  and  down  to  the 
tenth  century  oiu"  verse  appears  to  have  been  constructed  wholly 
upon  the  principle  of  alliteration.  Hence,  naturally,  even  after 
we  had  borrowed  the  practice  of  rhyme  from  the  French  or  Ro- 
mance writers,  our  poetry  retained  for  a  time  more  or  less  of  its 
original  habit.  In  Layamon,  as  we  have  seen,  alliterative  and 
rhyming  couplets  are  intermixed ;  in  other  cases,  as  in  Minot,  we 
have  the  rhyme  only  pretty  liberally  bespangled  with  alliteration. 
kt  this  date,  in  fact,  the  difficulty  probably  would  have  been  to 
Fold  alliteration  in  writing  verse  ;  all  the  old  customary  phraseol- 
ogies of  poetry  had  been  moulded  upon  that  principle  ;  and  indeed 
alliterative  expression  has  in  every  age,  and  in  many  other  lan- 
guages as  well  as  our  own,  had  a  charm  for  the  popular  ear,  so 
that  it  has  always  largely  prevailed  in  proverbs  and  other  such  tra- 
ditional forms  of  words,  nor  is  it  yet  by  any  means  altogether  dis- 
carded as  an  occasional  embellishment  of  composition,  whether  in 

1  Got  put  to  flight "?  2  Came  back  quietly  at  his  ease. 

^  When  he  perceived  there  was  no  harm  intended  him. 
*  Perhaps,  "  kept  his  beard  untouched." 


246  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

verse  or  in  prose.  But  there  is  one  poetical  work  of  the  fourteentll 
century,  of  considerable  extent,  and  in  some  respects  of  remark- 
able merit,  m  which  the  verse  is  without  rhyme,  and  the  system 
of  alliteration  is  almost  as  regular  as  what  we  have  in  the  poetry 
of  the  times  before  the  Conquest.  This  is  the  famous  Vision  of 
Piers  Ploughman,  or,  as  the  subject  is  expressed  at  full  length  in 
the  Latin  title,  Visio  Willielmi  de  Petro  Ploughman,  that  is.  The 
Vision  of  William  concernino;  Piers  or  Peter  Ploughman.  The 
manuscripts  of  this  poem,  Avliich  long  continued  to  enjoy  a  high 
popularity,  are  very  numerous,  and  it  has  also  been  repeatedly 
printed  :  first  in  1550,  at  London,  by  Robert  Crowley,  "  dwelling 
in  Elye  rentes  in  Holburne,"  who  appears  to  have  produced  three 
successive  impressions  of  it  in  the  same  year ;  again  in  1561,  by 
Owen  Rogers,  "  dwellyng  neare  unto  great  Saint  Bartelmewes 
gate,  at  the  sj^gne  of  the  Spred  Egle  ;  "  next  in  1813,  under  the 
superintendence  of  the  late  Thomas  Dunham  Whitaker,  LL.  D. ; 
lastly,  in  1842,  under  the  care  of  Thomas  Wright,  Esq.,  M.  A., 
F.  R.  S.,  &c.  The  early  editions,  and  also  Dr.  Whitaker's,  are  in 
quarto  and  in  black  letter.  Mr.  Wright's  is  in  the  common  type, 
and  in  the  much  more  commodious  form  of  two  volumes  duodeci- 
mo ;  and,  furnished  as  it  is  with  an  introduction,  notes,  and  a  glos- 
sary, all  very  carefully  and  learnedly  compiled,  is  as  superior  in 
all  other  respects  as  it  is  in  cheajDness  and  convenience  for  perusal 
to  Dr.  Whitaker's  costly  and  cumbrous  publication.  Whitaker, 
moreover,  whose  acquirements  in  this  department  of  study  were 
very  slender,  has  selected  a  text  widely  differing  from  the  common 
one,  and  which  has  evidently  no  claim  to  the  preference  with  which 
he  has  honored  it ;  that  given  by  Mr.  Wright  (who  has  added  in 
the  notes  the  most  important  of  the  variations  exhibited  by  Dr. 
Whitaker's  edition)  differs  very  little,  except  in  greater  accui*acy, 
from  that  first  printed  by  Crowley,  while  it  is  derived  fi'om  what 
appears  to  be  "  the  best  and  oldest  manuscript  now  in  existence." 
Dr.  Whitaker's  notes  and  glossary  are  contemptible ;  and  his  run- 
ning paraphrase,  which  accompanies  the  text,  will  be  found  much 
more  frequently  to  slur  over,  when  it  does  not  mistake,  the  obscure 
passages  of  the  original,  than  to  explain,  or  attempt  to  explain, 
them. 

Of  the  author  of  Piers  Ploughman  scarcely  anything  is  known. 
He  has  commonly  been  called  Robert  Langland :  but  there  are 
grounds  for  believing  that  his  Christian  name  was  William,  and  it 


PIERS  PLOUGHMAN.  247 

is  probable  that  it  is  himself  of  whom  he  speaks  imder  that  name 
throughout  his  work.  He  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  monk,  and 
he  seems  to  have  resided  in  the  West  of  England,  near  the  Mal- 
vern Hills,  where  he  introduces  himself  at  the  commencement  of 
his  poem  as  falling  asleep  "  on  a  May  morwenynge,"  and  entering 
upon  his  dreams  or  visions.  The  date  may  be  pretty  nearly  fixed. 
In  one  place  there  is  an  allusion  to  the  treaty  of  Bretigny  made 
with  France  in  1360,  and  to  the  military  disasters  of  the  previous 
year  which  led  to  it ;  in  another  passage  mention  is  made  of  a 
remai'kable  tempest  which  occurred  on  the  15th  of  January,  1362, 
as  of  a  recent  event.  "  It  is  probable,"  to  quote  Mr.  Wright, 
"  that  the  poem  of  Piers  Ploughman  was  composed  in  the  latter 
part  of  this  year,  when  the  effects  of  the  great  wind  were  fresh  in 
people's  memory,  and  when  the  treaty  of  Bretigny  liad  become  a 
subject  of  popular  discontent."  ^  We  may  assume,  at  least,  that 
it  was  in  hand  at  this  time. 

We  cannot  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  work.  It  consists,  in  Mr. 
Wright's  edition,  where  the  long  line  of  the  other  editions  is  divid- 
ed into  two,  of  14,696  verses,  distributed  into  twenty  sections,  or 
Passm  as  they  are  called.  Each  passus  forms,  or  professes  to 
form,  a  separate  vision ;  and  so  inartificial  or  confused  is  the  con- 
nection of  the  several  parts  of  the  composition  (notwithstanding 
Dr.  Whitaker's  notion  that  it  had  in  his  edition  "  for  the  first  time 
been  shown  that  it  was  written  after  a  regular  and  consistent 
plan"),  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  being  in  reality  not  so  much 
one  poem  as  a  succession  of  poems.  The  general  subject  may  be 
said  to  be  the  same  with  that  of  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  the 
exposition  of  the  impediments  and  temptations  which  beset  the 
crusade  of  this  our  mortal  life  ;  and  the  method,  too,  like  Bun- 
yan's, is  the  allegorical ;  but  the  spirit  of  the  poetiy  is  not  so  much 
picturesque,  or  even  descriptive,  as  satii-ical.  Vices  and  abuses  of 
all  sorts  come  m  for  their  share  of  the  exposure  and  invective ;  but 
the  main  attack  throughout  is  directed  against  the  corruptions  of 
the  church,  and  the  hypocrisy  and  worldliness,  the  ignorance,  indo- 
lence, and  sensuality,  of  the  ecclesiastical  order.  To  this  favorite 
theme  the  author  constantly  returns  with  new  affection  and  sharper 
xest  from  any  less  high  matter  which  he  may  occasionally  take  up. 
Hence  it  has  been  commonly  assumed  that  he  must  have  himself 
belonged  to  the  ecclesiastical  profession,  that  he  was  probably  a 
1  Introduction,  p.  xii. 


248  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

priest  or  monk.  And  liis  Vision  has  been  regarded  not  only  as 
niaiiily  a  religious  poem,  but  as  almost  a  puritanical  and  Protestant 
work,  although  produced  nearly  two  centuries  before  either  Prot- 
estantism or  Puritanism  was  ever  heard  of.  In  this  notion,  as  w^e 
have  seen,  it  was  brought  into  such  repute  at  the  time  of  the  Ref- 
ormation that  three  editions  of  it  were  printed  in  one  year.  There 
is  nothing,  however,  of  anti-Romanism,  properly  so  called,  in  Lang- 
land,  either  doctrinal  or  constitutional ;  and  even  the  anti-clerical 
spirit  of  his  poetry  is  not  more  decided  than  what  is  found  in  the 
writings  of  Chaucer,  and  the  other  popular  literature  of  the  time. 
In  all  ages,  indeed,  it  is  the  tendency  of  popular  literature  to  erect 
itself  into  a  ])Ower  adverse  to  that  of  the  priesthood,  as  has  been 
evinced  more  especially  by  the  poetical  literature  of  modern  Europe 
from  the  days  of  the  Provencal  troubadours.  In  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  hoAvever,  and  in  most  other  works  where  this  spirit  appears, 
the  puritanism  (if  so  it  is  to  be  called)  is  merely  one  of  the  forms 
of  the  poetry  ;  in  Piers  Ploughman  the  poetry  is  principally  a  form 
or  expression  of  the  puritanism. 

The  rhythm  or  measure  of  the  verse  in  this  poem  must  be  con- 
sidered as  accentual  rather  than  syllabical  —  that  is  to  say,  it  de- 
pends rather  upon  the  number  of  the^^accents  than  of  the  syllables. 
This  is,  perhaps,  the  origmal  pnnciple  oi'  all  verse ;"  and  it  still  re- 
mains the  leading  principle  in  various  kinds  of  verse,  both  in  our 
own  and  in  other  languages.  At  first,  probably,  only  the  accented 
syllables  were  counted,  or  reckoned  of  any  rhythmical  value  ; 
other  syllables  upon  which  there  was  no  emphasis  went  for  nothmg, 
and  might  be  introduced  in  any  part  of  the  verse,  one,  two,  or 
three  at  a  time,  as  the  poet  chose.  Of  course  it  would  at  all  times 
be  felt  that  there  were  limits  beyond  which  this  license  could  not 
he  carried  without  destroying  or  injuring  the  metrical  character  of 
the  composition  ;  but  these  limits  would  not  at  first  be  fixed  as  they 
now  for  the  most  part  are.  The  elementary  form  of  the  verse  in 
Piers  Ploughman  demands  a  sxiccession  of  four  accented  syllables 
—  two  in  the  first  hemistich  or  short  line,  and  two  in  the  second  ; 
but,  while  each  of  those  in  the  first  line  is  usually  preceded  by 
either  one  or  two  unaccented  syllables,  commonly  only  one  of  those 
in  the  second  line  is  so  preceded.  The  second  line,  therefore,  is 
for  the  most  part  shorter  than  the  first.  And  they  also  differ  in 
regard  to  the  alliteration  :  it  being  required  that  in  the  first  both 
^he  accented  or  emphatic  syllables,  which  are  generally  initial  s}'l- 


PIERS  PLOUGHMAN.  249 

lables,  should  begin  witli  the  same  letter,  but  that  in  the  second 
only  the  first  accented  syllable  should  begin  with  that  letter.  This 
is  the  general  rule  ;  but,  either  from  the  text  being  corrupt  or  from 
the  irregularity  of  the  composition,  the  exceptions  are  very  numer- 
ous.^ We  may  merely  add,  that,  although  in  our  extracts  we  shall 
for  the  convenience  of  printing,  and  for  the  greater  intelligibility, 
follow  Mr.  Wright's  edition,  as  in  other  respects,  so  in  the  bisection 
of  the  long  line  of  the  manuscripts  and  the  other  editions  into  tAvo 
short  ones,  onlv  markino;  the  structural  distinction  between  the 
first  and  second,  which  he  does  not,  we  suspect  that  the  true 
prosody  requires  these  short  lines  to  be  regarded  rather  as  hemis- 
tichs  than  as  entire  verses,  and  sometimes  only  as  false  hemistichs 
—  that  is  to  say,  that  the  correct  prosodical  division  would  be,  not 
in  all  cases  where  he  has  placed  it,  but  occasionally  in  the  middle 
of  the  Avord  with  which  he  closes  his  first  line.  But  this  is  a  mat- 
ter of  little  moment.  We  shall  adopt  the  plan  of  modernizing  the 
spelling  in  all  cases  in  which  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  pro 
nunciation  is  not  thereby  affected. 
The  poem  begins  as  follows  :  — 

In  a  summer  season, 

When  soft  was  the  sun, 
I  shoop  me  into  shrowda  ^ 

As  I  a  sheep  ^  were  ; 
In  habit  as  an  hermit 

Unholy  of  werkes,* 
Went  wide  in  this  Avorld 

Wonders  to  hear ; 
Ac  ^  on  a  May  morwening 

On  Malvern  hills 
Me  befel  a  ferly,^ 

Of  fairy  me  thought. 
I  was  weary  for-wandered,'' 

Mr  Wright  observes  that,  when  alUterative  poetry  was  written  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  writers,  instead  of  tliree,  "not  unfrequently  inserted  four  or  five  allit- 
erative words  in  the  same  [long]  line,  which  would  certainly  have  been  considered 
a  defect  in  the  earlier  writers."  But  this  defect,  if  it  be  one,  is  very  frequent  in 
Piers  Ploughman.  It  occurs,  for  instance,  in  the  two  commencing  lines  of  the  poem, 
at  least  as  printed  in  Mr.  Wriglit's  edition. 

■^  I  put  myself  into  clothes.  ^  A  shepherd. 

*  Whitaker's  interpretation  is,  "  in  habit,  not  like  an  anchorite  who  keeps  hia 
Dell,  but  like  one  of  tliose  unholy  hermits  who  wander  about  the  world  to  see  and 
hear  wonders."     He  reads,  "  That  went  forth  in  the  worl,"  &c. 

^  And.  ''  Wonder.  ''  Worn  out  with  wandering. 

VOL.  I  32 


230 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 


And  went  me  to  rest 
Under  a  brood  ^  bank, 

By  a  burn's  ^  side  ; 
And  as  I  lay  and  leaned, 

And  looked  on  the  waters, 
I  slombered  into  a  sleeping. 

It  swayed  so  mury.^ 
Then  gan  I  meten  * 

A  marvellous  sweven,^ 
That  I  was  in  a  wilderness, 

Wist  I  never  where  ; 
And,  as  I  beheld  into  the  east 

On  high  to  the  sun, 
I  seigh  ®  a  tower  on  a  toft '' 

Frieliche  ymaked,* 
A  deep  dale  beneath, 

A  donjon  therein, 
"With  deep  ditches  and  darke, 

And  dreadful  of  sight. 
A  fair  field  full  of  folk 

Found  I  there  between. 
Of  all  manner  of  men, 

The  mean  and  the  rich, 
Werking^  and  wandering 

As  the  world  asketh. 
Some  putten  hem  ^"  to  the  plough, 

Playden  full  seld,ii 
In  setting  and  sowing 

Swonken  ^'^  full  hard. 
And  wonnen  that  wasters 

"With  gluttony  destroyeth.^' 
And  some  putten  hem  to  pride, 

Apparelled  hem  thereafter. 
In  countenance  of  clothing 

Comen  deguised,'* 
In  prayers  and  penances 

Putten  hem  many,^^ 


1  Broad, 
♦  Meet. 

^  An  elevated  ground. 
5-  Put  tliem. 


2  Stream's. 

^  Dream. 

*  Handsomely  built. 

11  Played  full  seldom 
1^  Wan  that  which  wasters  with  glutton}'  destroy. 
1*  Came  disguised.     Whitaker  reads,  "  In  countenance  and  in  clothing, 
1^  Many  put  them,  applied  theraselves  to,  engaged  in. 


^  It  sounded  so  pleasant 
6  Saw. 
^  Working. 
1-  Labored. 


PIERS   PLOUGHMAN.  251 

All  for  the  love  of  our  Lord 

Liveden  full  strait,^ 
In  hope  to  have  after 

Heaven-riche  bliss ;  ^ 
As  anchors  and  hereinites  ' 

That  holden  hem  in  hir  *  ceils, 
And  coveten  nought  in  country 

To  carryen  about, 
For  no  likerous  liflode 

Hir  likame  to  please.^ 
And  some  chosen  chaffer :  ® 

They  cheveden ''  the  better, 
As  it  seemeth  to  our  sight 

That  svsdch  me  thriveth.* 
And  some  murths  to  make 

As  minstralles  con,^ 
And  geten  gold  with  liir  glee,^** 

Guiltless,  I  lieve.^^ 
Ac  japers  and  jaugellers  ^^ 

Judas'  children, 
Feignen  hem  fantasies 

And  fools  hem  maketh, 
And  han  hu*  -^^  wit  at  will 

To  werken  if  they  wold. 
That  Poul  preacheth  of  hem 

I  wol  nat  preve  ^*  it  here  : 
But  qui  loquitur  turpiloquium  ^^ 

Is  Jupiter's  hine.-^^ 
Bidders  ^"^  and  beggars 

Fast  about  yede,^^ 
With  hir  bellies  and  hir  bags 

Of  bread  full  y-crammed, 
Faiteden  ^^  for  hir  food, 

Foughten  at  the  ale  : 
In  gluttony,  God  wot, 

*  Lived  full  strictly.  ^  The  bliss  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

3  Anchorites  and  eremites  or  hermits.  *  Hold  them  in  their. 

^  By  no  likerous  living  their  body  to  please.  ''  Merchandise. 

'  Achieved  their  end.  ^  That  such  men  thriTe. 

®  And  some  are  skilled  to  make  mirths,  or  amusements,  as  minstrels. 
1"  And  get  gold  with  their  minstrelsy.  ^^  Believe. 

12  But  jesters  and  jugglers.  i^  Have  their.  i*  Will  not  prove. 

1^  Whoso  speaketh  ribaldry.  ^^  Our  modern  hi7id,  or  servant. 

1'^  Petitioners.  i^  Went.  ^^  Flattered. 


252  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Go  they  to  bed, 
And  risen  with  ribaudry/ 
Tho  Roberd's  knaves  ;  ^ 
Sleep  and  sorry  slewth  ' 

Sueth  *  hem  ever. 
Pilgrims  and  palmers 

Pliohten  hem  toofider  ^ 
For  to  seeken  Saint  Jame 

And  saintes  at  Rome  : 
They  wenten  forth  m  hir  way  ' 

With  many  wise  tales, 
And  hadden  leave  to  lieu  '' 

All  hir  life  after. 
I  seigh  some  that  seiden  ' 

They  had  y-sought  saints  : 
To  each  a  tale  that  they  told 

Hir  tongue  was  tempered  to  lie  ' 
More  than  to  say  sooth, 

It  seemed  by  hir  speech. 
Hermits  on  an  heap,  ^"^ 
With  hooked  staves, 
Wenten  to  Walsinghara, 

And  hir  wenches  after ; 
Great  loobies  and  long, 

That  loath  were  to  swink,^* 
Clothed  hem  in  copes 

To  be  knowen  from  other, 
And  shopen  hem  ^-  hermits 

Hir  ease  to  have. 
I  found  there  freres, 

All  the  four  orders, 
Preaching  the  people 

For  profit  of  hem  selve  : 
Glosed  the  gospel 

As  hem  good  liked  ;  ^* 
^  Rise  with  ribaldry. 

^  Those  Robertsmen  —  a  class  of  malefactors  mentioned  in  several  statutes  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  The  name  may  have  meant  originally  Robin  Hood's  men,  as 
Whitaker  conjectures. 

^  Sloth.  *  Pursue. 

'  Gather  them  together.  ^  They  went  forth  on  their  way. 

"^  To  lie.  ^  I  saw  some  that  said. 

^  In  every  tale  that  they  told  their  tongue  was  trained  to  lie. 
1"  In  a  crowd.  "  Labor. 

12  Made  themselves.  i^  As  it  seemed  to  them  good. 


PIERS  PLOUGHMAN.  253 

For  covetise  of  copes  ^ 

Construed  it  as  they  would. 
Many  of  these  master  freres 

Now  clothen  hem  at  liking,'' 
For  hir  money  and  hir  merchandize 

Marehen  togeders. 
For  sith  charity  hath  been  chapman, 

And  chief  to  shrive  lords, 
Many  ferlies  han  fallen  ^ 

In  a  few  years  : 
But  holy  church  and  hi* 

Hold  better  togeders, 
The  most  mischief  on  mould  ^ 

Is  mounting  well  fast. 
There  preached  a  pardoner, 

As  he  a  priest  were  ; 
Brought  forth  a  bull 

With  many  bishops'  seals, 
And  said  that  himself  might 

AssoUen  hem  all, 
Of  falsehede  of  fasting,® 

Of  avowes  y-broken. 
Lewed  "^  men  leved  ^  it  well. 

And  liked  his  words  ; 
Comen  up  kneeling 

To  kissen  Ms  bulls  : 
He  bouched  ^  hem  with  his  brevet,^" 

And  bleared  hir  eyen,^^ 
And  raught  with  his  ragman  ^^ 

Hinges  and  brooches. 

Here  it  will  be  admitted,  we  have  both  a  well-filled  canvas  and 
a  picture  with  a  good  deal  of  life  and  stir  in  it.  The  satiric  touches 
are  also  natural  and  effective  ;  and  the  expression  clear,  easy,  and 
not  deficient  in  vigor.  We  will  now  present  a  portion  of  the  Fifth 
Passus,  which  commences  thus  :  — 

^  Covetousness  of  copes  or  rich  clothing. 

^  Clothe  themselves  to  their  liking.  ^  Many  wonders  have  happened. 

*  Unless  holy  church  and  they.  ^  The  greatest  mischief  on  earth. 

^  Of  breaking  fast-days.  '^  Ignorant.  ^  Loved. 

^  Stopped  their  mouths.  ^'^  Little  brief  ^^  Bedimraed  their  eyes. 

^  Reached,  drew  in,  witli  his  catalogue  or  roll  of  names  1 


254  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

The  king  and  liis  knights 

To  the  kirk  went, 
To  hear  matins  of  the  day, 

And  the  mass  after. 
Then  waked  I  of  my  WTnking, 

And  wo  wa$  withal 
That  I  ne  had  slept  sadder  * 

And  y-seighen  ^  more. 
Ac  ere  I  had  faren  ^  a  furlong 

Faintise  me  hent,* 
That  I  ne  might  ferther  a  foot 

For  de-faut  of  sleeping, 
And  sat  softly  adown, 

And  said  my  believe. 
And  so  I  babbled  on  my  beads, 

They  brought  me  asleep. 
And  then  saw  I  much  more 

Than  I  before  of  told  ; 
For  I  seigh  the  field  fuU  of  folk 

That  I  before  of  said, 
And  how  Reason  gan  arrayen  him 

All  the  reaum  to  preach,^ 
And  with  a  cross  afore  the  king 

Comsed  ®  thus  to  teachen  :  — 
He  prered  that  these  pestilences  ' 

Were  for  pure  sin. 
And  the  south-western  wind 

On  Saturday  at  even  * 
Was  pertlich  ®  for  pure  pride, 

And  for  no  point  else. 
Pyries  "  and  plum-trees 

Were  puffed  to  the  earth, 
In  ensample  that  the  segges  ^* 

Sholden  do  the  better  ; 
Beeches  and  broad  oaks 

Were  blowen  to  the  ground, 

*  Sounder.  ^  Seen.  8  jjuj-  pre  I  had  walked 

*  Faintness  seized  me.        ^  To  preach  to  all  the  realm.    "  Commenced. 

^  The  three  great  pestilences  which  desolated  England  and  the  rest  of  Europe 
in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  occurred  in  1348-1349,  1361-1862,  and  1369. 
«  The  groat  tempest  of  Saturday,  Jan.  15,  1362. 

*  Manifestly.  i'^  Pear-trees.  ii  Men,  people. 


PIERS  PLOUGHMAN.  255 

Turned  upward  hir  tails, 

In  tokening  of  dread 
That  deadly  sin  ere  doomsday 

Shall  for-done  ^  hem  all. 

Tlie  account  of  Reason's  sermon  is  continued  at  great  length  ; 
after  which  the  repentance  of  his  auditors  is  narrated  as  follows  •  — 

Pemel  Pi-oudheart 

Plat  her  ^  to  the  earth, 
And  lay  long  ere  she  loked, 

And  "  Lord,  Mercy,"  cried, 
And  bi-highte  ^  to  him 

That  us  all  made 
She  should  unsowen  her  serk  * 

And  set  there  an  hair. 
To  afFaiten  ®  her  flesh, 

That  fierce  was  to  sin. 

Envy  with  heavy  heart 

Asked  after  shrift, 
And  carefully  mea  culpa 

He  comsed  ®  to  shew. 
He  was  as  pale  as  a  pellet,'^ 

In  the  palsy  he  seemed  ; 
And  clothed  jn  a  kaury  raaury  ' 

I  couth  it  nought  descrive. 
In  kirtle  and  courtepy,* 

And  a  knife  by  his  side  ; 
Of  a  frere's  frock 

"Were  the  fore-sleeves  ; 
And  as  a  leek  that  had  y-lay 

Long  in  the  sun, 
So  looked  he  with  lean  cheeks 

Lowering  foul. 
His  body  was  to-bollen  ■^''  for  wrath 

That  he  boot "  his  lips  ; 
And  wringing  he  yede  ^'^  with  the  fust ;  ^^ 

i  Undo,  ruin.  "  ^  Threw  herself  clown.  ^  Promised. 

*  Shirt.  ^  Tame.  ^  Commenced.  ^  Snowball. 

^  In  Cole's  Dictionary  this  is  given  as  a  Dutch  word,  and  interpreted  "mock -gar 
nients."  Wright,  in  his  Dictionary  of  Obsolete  and  Provincial  English,  has  caury 
worm-eaten.    But  see  post,  p.  263. 

3  A  short  coat.  ^'^  Was  swollen.  i^  Bit. 

^  Went.  13  Fist. 


-■'>6  ENGLISH   LT'IT.RATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

To  A\Tcaken  himself  he  thought 
With  Averks  or  with  words 

Wlien  he  seigh  his  time. 
Each  a  werd  that  he  warp  ^ 

Was  of  a  nedder's  ^  tongue  ; 
Of  chiding  and  of  chalenging 

Was  his  chief  liflode  ;  ^ 
With  backbiting  and  bismear  * 

And  bearing  of  false  witness. 
"  I  wold  been  y-shrive,"  quod  this  shrew, 

"  And  ^  I  for  shame  durst ; 
I  wold  be  gladder,  by  God, 

That  Gib  had  mischance 
Than  though  I  had  this  wouk  ^  y-AVon ' 

A  wey  "^  of  Essex  cheese. 
I  have  a  neighbor  by  me  ; 

I  have  annoyed  him  oft. 
And  lowen  ®  on  him  to  lords 

To  doon  him  lese  his  silver,' 
And  made  his  friends  be  his  foon  ^^ 

Thorough  my  false  tongue : 
His  grace  and  his  good  haps 

Grieven  me  full  sore. 
Between  many  and  many 

I  make  debate  oft, 
That  both  life  and  limb 

Is  lost  thorougli  my  speech. 
And  when  I  meet  him  in  market 

That  I  most  hate, 
I  hailse  him  hendly  ^^ 

As  I  his  friend  were  ; 
For  ^^  he  is  doughtier  than  I 

I  dare  do  none  other  ; 
Ac  ^*  had  I  mastery  and  might 

God  wot  my  will ! 
And  when  I  come  to  the  kirk, 

And  should  kneel  to  the  rood, 
And  pray  for  tlie  people 

^  Each  word  that  he  tittersd.  2  ^^  adder's.        ^  Livelihood  (way  of  living). 

*  Reproach,  besmearing.  ^  If,  an.  •>  Week. 

■f  256  povinda.  ^  Lied?  °  To  make  him  lose  liis  money 

^^  Foes.  "  I  salute  him  politely. 

12  Because.  i''  But. 


PIERS   PLOUGHMAN.  251 

As  the  priest  teacheth, 
For  pilgrims  and  for  palmers, 

For  all  the  people  after, 
Then  I  cry  on  my  knees 

That  Christ  give  hem  sorrow 
That  bearen  away  my  boll 

And  my  broke  shete.^ 
Away  fro  the  aiiter  '^  then 

Turn  1  mine  eyen, 
And  behold  Ellen 

Hath  a  new  coat : 
I  wish  tlien  it  were  mine, 

And  all  the  web  after. 
And  of  men's  lesing  ^  I  laugh  ; 

That  liketh  mine  heart : 
And  for  hir  winning  I  Aveep, 

And  wail  the  time, 
And  deem  that  they  doon  ill 

There  I  do  well  werse.^ 
Whoso  under-nymeth  ^  me  hereof, 

I  hate  him  deadly  after. 
I  wold  that  each  a  wight 

Were  my  knave  ;  ^ 
For  whoso  hath  more  than  I, 

That  angereth  me  sore. 
And  thus  I  live  loveless. 

Like  a  luther'^  dog, 
That  all  my  body  bolneth  ' 

For  bitter  of  my  gall. 
I  might  nought  eat  many  years 

As  a  man  ought, 
For  envy  and  evil  will 

Is  evil  to  defy.® 
May  no  sugar  nor  sweet  thing 

Assuage  my  swelling  ? 
Ne  no  diapenidion  ^'^ 

Drive  it  fro  mine  heart  ? 


1  That  bore  away  my  bowl  and  s^hftt  my  hronlc.  ^  Altar. 

"  Losing.  *  Where  I  do  still  worse  {bien  plus  pis) . 

5  Mr.  Wright  translates  undcrialcps,  tahs  j)os!<essioti  of.    Here,  perhaps,  the  meali- 
ng is,  takes  me  up  iu  speech,  checks  me  for  tliat. 
''  Servant.  "^  Vicious.  *  Swelleth. 

3  111  to  digest.  ^^  Electuary. 

VOL.  I.  33 


258  ENGLISH   I.TTERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Ne  ncitlier  shrift  ne  shame, 

But  whoso  shrape  ^  my  maw  ?  " 
"  Yes,  readily,"  quod  Repentance, 

And  rad  him  to  the  best ;  "^ 
"  Son'ow  of  sins 

Is  salvation  of  souls." 
"  I  am  soiTy,"  quod  that  segge  ; ' 

"  I  am  but  seld  other  ;  * 
And  that  maketh  me  thus  meagre 

For  ^  I  lie  may  me  venge. 
Amonges  burgesses  have  I  be 

Dwelling  in  London, 
And  gart  ®  backbiting  be  a  broker 

To  blame  men's  ware  : 
When  he  sold  and  I  nought. 

Then  was  I  ready 
To  lie  and  to  lower  on  my  neighbour, 

And  to  lack  his  chaffer.' 
I  woll  amend  this  if  I  may, 

Thorough  might  of  God  Almighty." 

The  cases  of  Wrath,  Covetousness,  Gluttony,  and  Slotli  follovr 
at  equal  or  greater  length ;  and  then  comes  the  passage  in  which 
Piers  Ploughman  is  first  mentioned.  The  people  having  been 
persuaded  by  the  exhortations  of  Repentance  and  Hope  to  set  out 
in  quest  of  Truth,  — 

A  thousand  of  men  tho  * 

Thrungen  togeders. 
Cried  upward  to  Clirist, 

And  to  his  clean  moder. 
To  have  grace  to  go  with  them 

Truthe  to  seek. 
Ac^  there  was  wight  none  so  wise 

The  way  thider  couth,^° 
But  blustrcden  ^^  forth  as  beasts 

Over  bankes  and  hills  ; 
Till  late  was  an  long 

'  Unless  one  sliould  scrape.     Tt  may  perhaps  be  doubted  if  tlicse  last  three  coup 
ets  are  intended  to  be  taken  interrogatively. 

*  Counselled  him  for  the  best.  ^  Man.  *  I  am  seldom  otherwise. 

*  Because.  "^  Caused  "^  To  disparage  his  merchandise. 

*  Then.  "  But.  i"  Knew.  ^^  Wandered  along  aimlessly 


PIERS   PLOUGHMAN.  259 

That  they  a  leecl  ^  met, 
Apparelled  as  a  paynim 

In  pilgrimes'  wise. 
He  bar  a  burden  y-bound 

With  a  broad  list, 
In  a  with-wind  wise  ^ 

Y-wounden  about ; 
A  bowl  and  a  bag 

He  bar  by  his  side. 
And  hundred  of  ampuls  ^ 

On  his  hat  setten, 
Signs  of  Sinai, 

And  shells  of  Galice, 
And  many  a  crouch  *  on  his  cloa^ 

And  keyes  of  Rome, 
And  the  Vernicle  ^  before, 

For  ®  men  shold  know 
And  see  by  his  signs 

Whom  he  sought  had. 
The  folk  frajTied ''  him  first 

Fro  whennes  he  come. 
"  From  Sinai,"  he  said, 

"  And  from  our  Lord's  sepulchre : 
In  Bethlem  and  in  Babiloyn, 

I  have  been  in  both  ; 
In  Armony  ^  and  Alisandre, 

In  many  other  places. 
Ye  may  see  by  my  signs. 

That  sitten  on  mine  hat, 
That  I  have  walked  full  wide 

In  weet  and  in  dry, 
And  sought  good  saints 

For  my  soul's  health." 
"  Knowestow  aught  a  corsaint  ® 

That  men  call  Truth  ? 
Coudestow  aught  wissen  us  the  way  *** 

Where  that  wye  "  dwelleth  ?  " 
"  Nay,  so  me  God  help," 

'  Person.  ^  AVithy-wand  wise. 

8  AmpuUcc,  small  vessels  of  holy  water  or  oil?  *  Cross. 

^  The  Veronica,  or  miraculous  picture  of  Christ.  ^  In  order  tVat. 

^  Questioned.  ^  Armenia.  ^  Knowest  thou  of  any  relic. 

10  Couldest  thou  tell  us  aught  of  the  way.  ^^  Man. 


260  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Said  the  gome  ^  then, 
"  I  seigh  never  palmer 

With  pike  ne  with  scrip 
Asken  after  him  ere 

Till  now  in  this  place." 

Then  the  narrative  goes  on,  as  printed  and  pointed  by  Mr. 
Wright,  who  has  no  note  upon  the  passage,  — 

"  Peter,"  quod  a  ploughman, 

And  put  forth  his  head, 
"  I  know  him  as  kindly 

As  clerk  doth  his  hookes  : 
Conscience  and  kind  ^  wit 

Kenned  ^  me  to  his  place, 
And  diden  me  suren  him  sickerly  * 

To  serven  him  for  ever, 
Both  to  sow  and  to  set 

The  while  I  swink  ®  might. 
I  have  been  his  follower 

All  this  fifty  A\anter, 
Both  y-sowen  ®  his  seed 

And  sued  '  his  beasts, 
Within  and  Avithouten 

Waited  his  profit. 
I  dig  and  I  delve, 

I  do  that  Truth  hoteth  :  ^ 
Some  time  I  sow 

And  sometime  I  thi-esh  ; 
In  tailors'  craft  and  tinkers'  craft 

What  Truth  can  devise  ; 
I  weave  and  I  Avind 

And  do  what  Truth  hoteth,"  «fec. 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  what  meaning  we  are  to  give  to  the 
word  "  Peter,"  understood  as  part  of  the  Ploughman's  speech. 
Wliitaker's  interpretation  is  "  One  Peter,  a  ploughman,  now  put 
fortli  his  head;"  and  in  a  note  upon  the  passage,  which  in  his 
i'dition  occurs  in  the  eighth  passus,  and  stands  "  Peter  quoth 
a  Ploughman,"  he   says,  "  As   Piers   Ploughman,  who  now  first 

'  Man.  -  Natural.  '  Sliowod. 

*  And  did  assure  (determine  or  fix)  me  to  him  securely  (firmly) 

'  I>abor.  6  Sowed.  ''  Tended.  *  Ordereth. 


PIERS  PLOUGHMAN.  261 

appears,  is  evidently  the  speaker,  we  must,  notAvithstanding  the 
arrangement  of  the  words,  understand  them  to  mean,  '  Quoth 
Peter  a  ploughman.'  "  But  it  is  evident  that  this  sense  cannot 
be  got  out  of  the  words  as  they  stand.^  The  line  is  possibly  cor- 
rupt ;  and  indeed  the  whole  passage,  though  one  on  which  so  mucli 
of  the  structure  of  the  poem  hinges,  exhibits  other  traces  of  having 
suffered  from  the  carelessness  or  ignorance  of  the  transcribers.  It 
differs  widely  throughout  in  the  two  editions.  But  everything 
relating  to  the  personage  from  whom  the  work  takes  its  name 
would  almost  seem  to  be  designedly  involved  in  confusion  and 
obscurity.  The  Ploughman  ends  his  speech,  of  which  we  have 
quoted  the  commencement,  by  telling  his  auditors  that,  if  they 
wish  to  know  where  Truth  dwells,  he  is  ready  to  show  them  the 
way  to  his  residence ;  upon  which,  proceeds  the  story,  — 

"  Yea,  leve  -  Piers,"  quod  these  pilgrims, 

And  proffered  him  hire, 
For  to  wend  with  hem 

To  Truth's  dwelling-place. 
"  Nay,  by  my  soul's  help,"  ^  quod  Piers, 

And  gan  for  to  sweai-, 
I  nold  fang  a  fertliing, 

1  From  its  position  the  word  Peter  would  almost  seem  to  be  nothing  more  than  an 
exclamation.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  noticed  that  we  have  the  same  form 
of  expression  in  two  passages  of  Chaucer's  House  of  Fame ;  in  book  II.,  1.  526, 
where,  to  the  question  of  the  eagle, 

"  And  what  sown  is  it  like?  quod  he," 

the  author  answers, 

"  Peter!  like  the  beating  of  the  sea. 
Quod  I,  against  the  roches  halow: "  — 

and  again  in  book  III.,  1.  910,  where  it  is  used  by  the  eagle  in  addressing  the  author 
(elsewhere  called  Geffrey,  see  II.  221)  — 

"  Peter !  that  is  now  mine  intent, 
Quod  he  to  me." 

Perhaps  "Peter!  quod  a  Ploughman  "  means  no  more  than  what  we  find  a  few 
pages  after :  — 

"  Quod  Perkin  the  Ploughman, 
By  Saint  Peter  of  Rome !  "  —  1.  3799. 

Besides,  the  Ploughman,  we  believe,  is  never  afterwards  called  Peter ;  but  always 
either  Piers  or  Perkin. 

^  Dear. 

3  Should  not  tliis  be  helth,  or  health  ?  The  Saxon  character  for  ih  is  very  apt  to 
be  mistaken  for  a  p. 


262  EN(31LISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

For  Saint  Thomas'  shrine  ;  * 
Truth  wold  love  me  the  lass  ^ 

A  long  time  thereafter. 
Ac  if  you  wilneth  to  wend  well ' 

This  is  the  way  thider  :  — 
Ye  moten  *  go  thorough  Meekness, 

Both  men  and  wives, 
Till  ye  come  into  Conscience,"  &c. 

The  personage  who  thus  speaks  is  afterwards  constantly  desig- 
nated Piers,  or  sometimes  Perkin,  the  Ploughman,  and  he  makes 
a  considerable  figure  throughout  the  sixth  and  seventh  Passus ; 
after  which  we  hear  little  more  of  him  till  we  come  to  the  six- 
teenth. In  the  eighteenth  Passus  "  the  character  of  Piers  the 
Ploughman,"  according  to  Mr.  Wright's  vicAv  (Introduction,  p. 
xxiv.),  "  is  identified  with  that  of  the  Saviour."  Whitaker,  who 
generally  calls  him  "  the  mysterious  personage,"  conceives  (Intro- 
ductoiy  Discourse,  p.  xxviii.)  that  Piers  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
poem  is  intended  to  be  the  representative  of  the  Church.  Taking 
the  church  as  meaning,  not  the  clergy  or  the  ecclesiastical  system, 
but  the  body  of  the  faithful,  it  w^ould  not  perhaps  be  impossible  to 
understand  Piers  as  sustainino;  that  character  throuo-hout  the  work. 

PIERS   PLOUGHMAN'S    CREED. 
J 
The  popularity  of  Langland's    poem  appears  to  have  brought 

alliterative  verse  into  fashion  again  even  for  poems  of  considerable 
length ;  several  romances  were  written  in  it,  such  as  that  of  Wil- 
liam and  the  Werwolf,  that  of  Alexander,  that  of  Jerusalem,  and 
others ;  and  the  use  of  it  was  continued  throughout  the  greater 
j)art  of  the  fifteenth  century.  But  the  most  I'emarkable  imitation 
of  the  Vision  is  the  poem  entitled  Piers  the  Ploughman's  Creed, 
Avhich  ajmears  to  have  been  written  about  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
centur^^it  was  first  printed  separately  at  London,  in  4to.  by  Rey- 
nold Wolfe,  in  1553  ;  then  by  Rogers,  along  ^^'ith  the  Vision,  in 
15t>l.  In  modern  times  it  has  also  been  printed  separately,  in 
1814,  as  a  companion  to  Whitaker's  edition  of  the  Vision ;  and, 
along  with  the  Vision,   in    Mr.  Wright's  edition   of  1842.     The 

1  I  wonlil  not  take  a  farthing,  if  you  were  to  offer  me  all  the   wealth  of  St 
rhomas's  shrine. 
-  Less.  8  j3yt  if  you  ^.jgjj  tQ  go  ^g}i_  4  Must. 


PIERS   PLOUGHMAN'S   CREED.  263 

Creed  is  the  composition  of  a  follower  of  Wyclif,  and  an  avowed 
opponent  of  Romanism.  Here,  Mr.  Wright  observes,  "  Piers 
Ploughman  is  no  longer  an  allegorical  personage  :  he  is  the  simple 
representative  of  the  peasant  rising  up  to  judge  and  act  for  himself 
—  the  English  smis-culotte  of  the  fourteenth  century,  if  we  may  be 
allowed  the  comparison."  The  satire,  or  invective,  in  this  effusion 
(which  consists  only  of  1697  short  lines),  is  directed  altogether 
against  the  clergy,  and  especially  the  monks  or  friars ;  and  Piers 
or  Peter  is  represented  as  a  poor  ploughman  from  whom  the  writer 
receives  that  instruction  in  Christian  truth  which  he  had  sought 
for  in  vain  from  every  order  of  these  licensed  teachers.  The  lan- 
guage is  quite  as  antique  as  that  of  the  Vision,  as  may  appear  from 
the  following  passage,  in  which  Piers  is  introduced :  — 

Then  turned  I  me  forth, 

And  talked  to  myself 
Of  the  falsehede  of  this  folk, 

How  faithless  they  weren. 
And  as  I  went  by  the  way 

Weeping  for  sorrow, 
I  see  a  seely  ^  man  me  by 

Upon  the  plough  hongen.^ 
His  coat  was  of  a  clout  ^ 

That  cary  *  was  y-called  ; 
His  hood  was  full  of  holes, 

And  his  hair  out ; 
With  his  knopped  shoon  ^ 

Clouted  full  thick, 
His  ton "  toteden ''  out 

As  he  the  lond  treaded : 
His  hosen  overhongen  his  hoc-shynes  ' 

On  everich  a  side, 
All  beslomered  ^  in  fen  ^° 

As  he  the  plough  followed. 


1  Simple.  ^  Hung,  bent,  over.  '  Cloth. 

*  Is  not  this  the  same  word  that  we  have  in  caury  maury  [vid.  sup.  p.  255)  ?     It 
would  seem  to  be  the  name  of  a  kind  of  clotli. 

5  Knobbed  shoes.  ^  Toes.  "^  Peeped. 

*  Neither  of  Mr.  Wriglit's  explanations  seems  quite  satisfactory  :  "  crooked  shins ;  " 
>r  "  the  sliin  towards  the  hock  or  anl?le  "  1 

0  Bedaubed.  lo  Mud. 


264  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Twey  ^  mittens  as  meter  ^ 

Made  all  of  clouts, 
The  fingers  weren  for-weard  ' 

And  full  of  fen  honged. 
This  whit  ^  wasled  ^  in  the  feen  • 

Almost  to  the  ancle : 
Four  rotheren ''  him  beforn, 

That  feeble  were  worthy  ; ' 
Men  might  reckon  each  a  rib  • 

So  rentful  ^°  they  weren. 
His  "vvife  walked  him  with, 

With  a  long  goad. 
In  a  cutted  coat 

Gutted  full  high, 
"Wrapped  in  a  winnow  ii  sheet 

To  wearen  her  fro  weders,^^ 
Barefoot  on  the  bare  ice, 

That  the  blood  followed. 
And  at  the  lond's  end  ^^  lath  ^* 

A  little  crom-bolle,^^ 
And  thereon  lay  a  little  cliild 

Lapped  in  clouts. 
And  tweyn  of  twey  years  old  " 

Opon  another  side. 
And  all  they  songen  "  o  ^^  song. 

That  sorrow  was  to  hearen ; 
They  crieden  all  o  cry, 

A  careful  note. 
The  seely  man  sighed  sore, 

And  said,  "  Children,  beth  "  still." 
This  man  looked  opon  me, 

Ajid  leet  the  plough  stonden ;  ^ 
And  said,  "  Seely  man. 

Why  sigliest  thou  so  hard? 

iTwo. 

'^  Mr.  Wright  suggests  ^/<er ;  which  does  not  seem  to  make  sense. 

^  Were  worn  out.  *  Wiulit.  ^  Dirtied  himself. 

*  Fen,  mufl.  ''  Oxen  (tlie  Four  Evangelists). 

*  Become?     Perhaps  the  true  reading  is  fort/ii/,  that  is,yb?-  that. 

'  Each  rib.  w  Meagre?  "Winnowing. 

*2  The  meaning  seems  to  be,  "  to  protect  her  from  tlie  weather." 
w  The  end  of  the  field.  "  Lieth  1 

1*  Mr.  Wright  explains  by  "  crum-bowl." 

i"  Two  of  two  years  old.  ^"  Sang.  ^^  One. 

»9  Be.  20  Let  the  plough  stand. 


ALLITERATIVE   POETRY.  265 

Gif  thee  lack  lifelode,^ 

Lene  thee  ich  will  '^ 
Swich  ^  good  as  God  hath  sent : 

Go  we,  leve  brother."  * 

Alliterative  verse,  the  most  ancient  form  of  our  pcetry,  would 
seem  to  have  been  revived,  and  brought  into  fashion  or  favor  again 
for  a  time,  after  having  been  long  disused,  by  its  successful  employ- 
ment in  the  Visions  of  Piers  Ploughman,  and  the  popularity  of 
that  work.  Both  Warton  in  his  History,  and  Percy  in  an  Essay 
published  in  the  second  volume  of  his  Reliques,  have  noticed  sev- 
eral other  alliterative  poems,  in  addition  to  the  Creed,  which,  al- 
though not  all  strictly  speaking  to  be  regarded  as  imitations  of 
Langland's  performance,  probably  owed  their  existence  mainly  to 
the  example  he  had  set.  In  some  of  them  the  alliteration  is  carried 
much  further  than  in  the  Visions,  the  jingle,  or  juggle,  of  like 
beginnings^  as  Milton  might  have  called  it,  being  introduced,  not 
according  to  a  rule  only  in  certain  places  of  the  verse,  but  appar- 
ently to  the  utmost  extent  that  the  writer  found  possible  by  avaihng 
himself  of  all  the  resources  of  his  vocabulary.  Here,  for  instance, 
is  the  commencmg  stanza  of  a  Hymn  to  the  Virgin,  given  by 
Warton :  — 

Hail  beo  yow,  Marie,  moodiir  and  may,^ 

Mylde,  and  meke,  and  merciable  ;  ® 
Heyl,  folliche  "^  fruit  of  sothfast  fay,* 

Agayn  uche  stryf^  studefast  and  stable! 
Heil,  sothfast  soul  in  uche  a  say,-^" 
Undur  the  son  ^^  is  non  so  able. 
Heil,  logge  ^^  that  ur  lord  in  lay, 

The  formast  that  never  was  founden  in  fable !  ^' 
Heil,  trewe,  trouthfuU,  and  tretable  !  ^* 
Heil,  cheef  i  chosen  of  chastite  !  ^^ 
Heil,  homely,  hende,^®  and  ainyable 
To  preye  for  us  to  thi  sone  so  fre  ! 

1  If  lirelihood  lack,  or  be  wanting  to,  thee. 

2  Give  or  lend  thee  I  will.  ^  Such.  *  Let  us  go,  dear  brother. 
6  Motlier  and  maid.  ^  Merciful. 

"<  Baptismal  ?  *  Truth-fast  faith. 

9  Against  each  strife  steadfast.  ^^  In  each  assay,  or  trial. 

"  The  sun.  ^  Lodge. 

1^  The  foremost  that  ever  was  found  in  story  ? 

1*  Tractable.  ^°  Chosen  (ychosen)  chief  of  chastity. 

"'  Gentle,  courteous. 

VOL.  I.  34 


THIRD    ENGLISH. 

(MIXED    OR   COMPOUND   ENGLISH.) 


GEOFFREY    CHAUCER. 

The  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman  is  our  earliest  poetical  work 
of  any  considerable  extent  that  may  still  be  read  with  pleasure  ; 
but  not  much  of  its  attraction  hes  in  its  poetry. .  It  interests  us 
chiefly  as  rather  a  lively  picture  (which,  however,  would  have 
been  nearly  as  eflTective  in  prose)  of  much  in  the  manners  and 
general  social  condition  of  the  time,  and  of  the  new  spirit  of 
opposition  to  old  things  which  was  then  astir ;  partly,  too,  by  the 
language  and  style,  and  as  a  monument  of  a  peculiar  species  of 
versification.  Langland,  or  whoever  was  the  author,  probably 
contributed  by  this  great  work  to  the  advancement  of  his  native 
tongue  to  a  larger  extent  than  he  has  had  credit  for.  The  gram- 
matical forms  of  his  English  will  be  found  to  be  very  nearly,  if  not 
exactly,  the  same  with  those  of  Chaucer's  ;  his  vocabulary,  if  more 
sparingly  admitting  the  non-Teutonic  element,  still  does  not  abjure 
the  principle  of  the  same  composite  constitution  ;  nor  is  his  style 
much  inferior  in  mere  regularity  and  clearness.  So  long  a  work 
was  not  likely  to  have  been  undertaken  except  by  one  who  felt 
himself  to  be  in  full  possession  of  the  language  as  it  existed :  the 
writer  was  no  doubt  prompted  to  engage  in  such  a  task  in  great 
part  by  his  gift  of  ready  expression ;  and  he  could  not  fail  to  gain 
additional  fluency  and  skill  in  the  course  of  the  composition,  espe- 
cially with  a  construction  of  verse  demanding  so  incessant  an 
attention  to  words  and  syllables.  The  popularity  of  the  poem,  too, 
would  difluse  and  establish  whatever  improvements  in  the  language 
it  may  have  introduced  or  exemplified.  In  addition  to  the  ability 
displayed  in  it,  and  the  popular  spirit  of  the  day  with  which  it  was 
animated,  its  position  in  the  national  literature  naturally  and  de- 
servedly gave  to  the  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman  an  extraordinary 
influence;  for  it  lias  the  distinction  (so  far  as  is  either  known  or 
probable)  of  being  the  eai'liest  original  work,  of  any  magnitude, 
in  the  present  form  of  the  language.     Robert  of  Gloucester  an  J 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  267 

Robert  de  Brunne,  Langlaud's  predecessors,  were  both,  it  may  be 
remembered,  only  translators  or  paraphrasts. 

If  Langlaud,  however,  is  our  earhest  original  writer,  Chaucer 
is  still  our  first  great  poet,  and  the  true  father  of  our  literature, 
properly  so  called.  Compared  with  his  productions,  all  thai  pre- 
cedes is  barbarism.  But  what  is  much  more  remarkable  is  that 
very  little  of  what  has  followed  in  the  space  of  nearly  five  cen- 
turies that  has  elapsed  since  he  lived  and  wrote  is  worthy  of  b"ing 
compared  with  what  he  has  left  us.  He  is  in  our  English  po  'try 
almost  what  Homer  is  in  that  of  Greece,  and  Dante  in  that  of 
Italy,  —  at  least  in  his  own  sphere  still  the  greatest  light. 

Although,  therefore,  according  to  the  scheme  of  the  histor}  of 
the  language  which  has  been  propounded,  the  third  form  of  it,  or 
that  which  still  subsists,  may  be  regarded  as  having  taken  its  com- 
mencement perhaps  a  full  century  before  the  date  at  which  we  are 
now  arrived,  and  so  as  taking  in  the  works,  not  only  of  Langland, 
but  of  his  predecessors  fi'om  Robert  of  Gloucester  inclusive,  our 
living  English  literature  may  be  most  fitly  held  to  begin  with  the 
poetry  of  Chaucer.  It  will  thus  count  an  existence  already  of 
above  five  centuries.  Chaucer  is  supposed  to  have  been  born 
about  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  —  in  the  yeai'' 
1328,  if  we  may  trust  what  is  said  to  have  been  the  ancient 
inscription  on  his  tombstone  ;  so  that  he  had  no  doubt  begun  t(> 
w^'ite,  and  was  probably  well  known  as  a  poet,  at  least  as  early  a^^ 
Langland.  They  may  indeed  have  been  contemporaries  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word,  for  anything  that  is  ascertained.  If 
Langland  wrote  the  Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman,  as  well  as  the 
Vision,  which  (although  it  has  not,  we  believe,  been  suggested)  ie 
neither  impossible  nor  very  unlikely,  he  must  have  lived  to  as  late, 
or  very  nearly  as  late,  a  date  as  Chaucer,  who  is  held  to  have  died 
in  1400.  At  the  same  time,  as  Langland's  greatest,  if  not  only, 
work  appears  to  have  been  produced  not  long  after  the  middle  of 
the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  and  the  composition  of  Chaucer's  Can- 
terbury Tales  not  to  have  been  begun  till  about  the  middle  of  that 
of  Richard  II.,  the  probability  certainly  is,  regard  being  had  to  the 
species  and  character  of  these  poems,  each  seemingly  impressed 
v\'ith  a  long  experience  of  life,  that  Langland,  if  not  the  earlier 
writer,  was  the  elder  man. 

The  writings  of  Chaucer  are  very  voluminous  ;  comprising,  in 
so  far  as  they  have  come  down  to  us,  in  verse.  The  Canterbury 


268  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Tales ;  the  Roniauiit  of  the  Rose,  in  7701  lines,  a  translation  from 
the  French  Ronian  de  la  Rose  of  Gnillaume  de  Lorris  and  Jean 
de  Meun ;  Troilus  and  Creseide,  in  Five  Books,  on  the  same  sub- 
ject as  the  Filostrato  of  Boccaccio ;  the  House  of  Fame,  in  Three 
Books  ;  Chaucer's  Dream,  in  2235  lines  ;  the  Book  of  the  Duchess 
(sometimes  called  the  Dream  of  Chaucer),  1334  lines;  the  Assem- 
bly of  Fowls,  694  lines  ;  the  Flower  and  the  Leaf,  595  lines  ;  the 
Court  of  Love,  1442  lines ;  together  with  many  ballads  and  other 
minor  pieces :  and  in  prose  (besides  portions  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales),  a  translation  of  Boethius'  De  Consolatione  Philosophiae ; 
the  Testament  of  Love,  an  imitation  of  the  same  treatise  ;  and  a 
Treatise  on  the  Astrolabe,  addressed  to  his  son  Lewis  in  1391,  of 
which,  however,  we  have  only  two  out  of  five  parts  of  which  it 
was  intended  to  consist.  All  these  works  have  been  printed,  most 
of  them  more  than  once  ;  and  a  good  many  other  pieces  have  also 
been  attributed  to  Chaucer  which  are  either  known  to  be  the  com- 
positions of  other  poets,  or  of  which  at  least  there  is  no  evidence 
or  probability  that  he  is  the  au^thor.  Only  the  Canterbury  Tales, 
however,  have  as  yet  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  anything  like  care- 
ful editing.  Tyrwhitt's  elaborate  edition  was  first  published,  in 
4  vols.  8vo.,  in  1775,  his  Glossary  to  all  the  genuine  works  of 
Chaucer  having  followed  in  1778  ;  and  another  edition,  presenting 
a  new  text,  and  also  accompanied  with  notes  and  a  Glossary,  Avas 
brought  out  by  Mr.  T.  Wright  for  the  Percy  Society  in  1847. 

In  his  introductory  Essay  on  the  Language  iand  Versification  of 
Chaucer,  Tyrwhitt  observes,  that  at  the  time  when  this  great 
writer  made  his  first  essays  the  use  of  rhyme  was  established  in 
English  poetry,  not  exclusively  (as  we  have  seen  by  the  example 
of  the  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman),  but  very  generally,  "  so  that 
in  this  respect  he  had  little  to  do  but  to  imitate  his  predecessors." 
But  the  metrical  part  of  our  poetry,  the  learned  editor  conceives, 
•'  was  capalile  of  more  improvement,  by  the  polishing  of  the  meas- 
ures already  in  use,  as  well  as  by  the  introduction  of  new  modes 
of  versification."  "  With  respect,"  he  continues,  "  to  the  regular 
measures  then  in  use,  they  may  be  reduced,  I  think,  to  four. 
First,  tlie  long  Iambic  metre,  consisting  of  not  more  than  fifteen 
nor  less  than  fourteen  syllables,  and  broken  by  a  caesura  at  the 
Bightli  syllable.  Secondly,  the  Alexandrine  metre,  consisting  of 
not  more  than  thirteen  syllal)les  nor  less  than  twelve,  with  a  caesura 
at  the  sixth.     Tliirdly,  the  Octosyllable  metre,  which  was  in  reality 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  269 

the  ancient  dimeter  Iambic.  Fourthly,  the  stanza  of  six  verses, 
of  which  the  first,  second,  fourth,  and  fifth  were  in  the  complete 
octosyllable  metre,  and  the  third  and  last  catalectic,  —  that  is, 
wanting  a  syllable,  or  even  two."  The  first  of  these  metres  Tyr- 
whitt  considers  to  be  exemplified  in  the  Ormulum,  and  probably 
also  in  the  Chronicle  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,  if  the  genuine  text 
could  be  recovered;  the  second,  apparently,  by  Robert  de  Brunne, 
in  imitation  of  his  French  original,  although  his  verse  in  Hfcarne's 
edition  is  frequently  defective  :  the  third  and  fourth  were  very 
common,  being  then  generally  used  in  lighter  compositions,  as  they 
still  are.  "  In  the  first  of  these  metres,"  he  proceeds,  "  it  does 
not  appear  that  Chaucer  ever  composed  at  all  (for  I  presume  no 
one  can  imagine  that  he  was  the  author  of  Gamelyn),  or  in  the 
second ;  and  in  the  fourth  we  have  nothing  of  his  but  the  Rhyme 
of  Sire  Thopas,  which,  being  intended  to  ridicule  the  vulgar  ro- 
mancers, seems  to  have  been  purposely  written  in  their  favorite 
metre.  In  the  third  or  octosyllable  metre  he  has  left  several 
compositions,  particularly  an  imperfect  translation  of  the  Roman 
de  la  Rose,  which  was  pi'obably  one  of  his  earliest  performances. 
The  House  of  Fame,  the  Dethe  of  the  Duchesse  Blanche,  and  a 
poem  called  his  Dreme  :  upon  all  which  it  will  be  sufficient  here 
to  observe  in  general,  that,  if  he  had  given  no  other  proofs  of  his 
poetical  foculty,  these  alone  must  have  secured  to  him  the  pre- 
eminence above  all  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries  in  point 
of  versification.  But  by  far  the  most  considerable  part  of  Chau- 
cer's works  is  written  in  that  kind  of  metre  which  we  noAv  call  the 
Heroic,  either  in  distichs  or  stanzas ;  and,  as  I  have  not  been  able 
to  discover  any  instance  of  this  metre  being  used  by  any  English 
poet  before  him,  I  am  much  inclined  to  suppose  that  he  was  the 
first  introducer  of  it  into  oin*  language."  It  had  been  long  prac- 
tised by  the  writers  both  in  the  northern  and  southern  French ; 
and  within  the  half  century  before  Chaucer  wrote  it  had  been  suc- 
cessfully cultivated,  in  preference  to  every  other  metre,  by  the 
great  poets  of  Italy,  —  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio.  T_)Twhitt 
argues,  therefore,  that  Chaucer  may  have  borrowed  his  new  Eng- 
lish verse  either  from  the  French  or  from  the  Italian. 

That  the  particular  species  of  verse  in  which  Chaucer  has 
written  his  Canterbviry  Tales  and  some  of  his  other  poems  had 
not  been  used  by  any  other  English  poet  before  him,  has  not,  we 
believe,  been  disputed,  and  does  not  appear  to  be  disputable,  at 


270  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

least  from  siicli  remains  of  our  early  poetical  literature  as  we  now 
possess.  Here,  then,  is  one  important  fact.  It  is  certain,  also, 
that  the  French,  if  not  likewise  the  Italian,  poets  who  employed 
the  decasyllabic  (or  more  properly  hendecasyllabic  •^)  metre  were 
well  known  to  Chaucer.  The  presumption,  therefore,  that  his 
new  metre  is,  as  Tyrwhitt  asserts,  this  same  Italian  or  French 
metre  of  ten  or  eleven  syllables  (our  present  heroic  verse), 
becomes  very  strong. 

Moreover,  if  Chaucer's  verse  be  not  constructed  upon  the  prin- 
ciple of  syllabical  as  well  as  accentual  regularity,  Avhen  was  this 
principle,  which  is  now  the  law  and  universal  practice  of  our  poe- 
try, introduced  ?  It  will  not  be  denied  to  have  been  comjiletely 
established  ever  since  the  language  acquired  in  all  material  re- 
spects its  present  form  and  pronunciation,  —  that  is  to  say,  at  least 
since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  :  if  it  was  not  by  Chau- 
cer at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth,  by  whom  among  his  followers 
in  the  course  of  the  next  hundred  and  fifty  years  was  it  first  ex- 
emplified ? 

At  present  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  no  one  of  his  successors 
throughout  tliis  space  has  hinted  that  any  improvement,  any 
chan«;e,  had  been  made  in  the  construction  of  Encrlish  verse  since 
Chaucer  wrote.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  generally  recognized  by 
them  as  the  great  reformer  of  our  language  and  our  poetry,  and  as 
their  master   and   instructor  in  their  common  art.     By  his  friend 

^  In  tho  Italian  language,  at  least,  the  original  and  proper  form  of  the  verse  ap- 
pears to  have  consisted  of  eleven  syllables ;  whence  the  generical  name  of  the  metre 
is  eiidecasi/lldho,  and  a  verse  of  fen  syllables  is  called  cndccasijUabo  ironro,  and  one  of 
twelve,  endeaimjllaho  sdnicciolo.  But  these  variations  do  not  affect  the  prosodical 
character  of  the  verse,  which  requires  on\y  tliat  the  tenth  should  be  in  all  cases 
tlic  last  arcfnied  syllable.  Tlie  modern  English  heroic,  or,  as  we  commonly  call  it, 
ten-syllabled  verse,  still  admits  of  being  extended  by  an  eleventh  or  even  a  twelfth 
vnaiceiitf'd  syllable  ;  although,  from  the  constitution  of  our  present  language  as  to 
syllabic  emphasis.,  such  extension  is  with  us  the  exception,  not  the  rule,  as  it  is  (at 
least  to  the  length  of  eleven  syllables)  in  Italian.  It  may  be  doubted  whether 
(?haucer's  type  or  model  line  is  to  be  considered  as  decasyllabic  or  hendecasyllabic; 
Tyrwhitt  was  of  opinion  that  the  greater  number  of  his  verses,  when  proj^erly 
written  and  pronounced,  would  be  found  to  consist  of  eleven  syllables  ;  and  this 
will  seim  probable,  if  we  look  to  what  is  assumed,  on  the  theory  of  his  versification 
which  we  are  considering,  to  have  been  the  pronunciation  of  the  language  in  his 
day.  At  the  same  time  many  of  his  lines  evidently  consist  (even  on  this  theory) 
of  ten  .syllables  only;  and  such  a  construction  of  verse  for  ordinary  purposes  is 
become  so  much  more  agreeable  to  modern  usage  and  taste  that  his  poetry  had 
Detter  be  so  read  whenever  it  can  be  done,  even  at  the  cost  of  thereby  g  )n>ewhat 
violating  the  exactness  of  the  ancient  pronunciation. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  271 

and  disciple  Occleve  he  is  called  "  the  first  finder  of  our  fair  Ian- 
gage."  So  Lydgate,  in  the  next  generation,  celebrates  him  as 
his  master  —  as  "  chief  poet  of  Britain  "  —  as 

—  "  he  that  was  of  making  soverain, 
Whom  all  this  lande  of  right  ought  prefer, 
Sith  of  our  langage  he  was  the  lode-ster  "  — 
and  as  — 

"  The  noble  rhethor  poet  of  Britain, 
That  worthy  was  the  laurer  to  have 
Of  poetrye,  and  the  palm  attain  ; 
That  made  first  to  distil  and  rain 
The  gold  dew-drops  of  speech  and  eloquence 
Into  our  tongue  through  his  excellence. 
And  found  the  fiowres  first  of  rhetoric 
Our  rude  speech  only  to  enlumine,"  &c. 

A  later  writer,  Gawin  Douglas,  sounds  his  praise  as  — 

"  Venerable  Chaucer,  principal  poet  but  ^  peer, 
Heavenly  trumpet,  orlege,"'  and  regulere ;  ^ 
In  eloquence  balm,  conclict,''  and  dial, 
Milky  fountain,  clear  strand,  and  rose  rial,"  ^ 

in  a  strain,  it  must  be  confessed,  more  remarkable  for  enthusiastic 
vehemence  than  for  poetical  inspiration.  The  learned,  and  at  the 
same  time  elegant,  Leland,  in  the  next  age  describes  him  as  the 
writer  to  whom  his  country's  tongue  owes  all  its  beauties  :  — 

"  Anglia  Chaucerum  veneratur  nostra  poetam, 
Cui  veneres  debet  patria  lingua  suas  ; " 

and  again,  in  another  tribute,  as  having  first  reduced  the  language 
into  regular  form  :  — 

"  Linguam  qui  patriam  redegit  illam 
In  formam." 

And  such  seems  to  have  been  the  unbroken  tradition  down  to 
Spenser,  who,  looking  back  through  two  centuries,  hails  his  great 
predecessor  as  still  the  "well  of  English  undefiled." 

If  now  we  proceed  to  examine  Chaucer's  verse,  do  we  find  it 
fLctually  characterized  by  this  regularity,  which  indisputably  has  at 

^  Without.  2  Horologe,  clock  or  watch. 

'  Regulator.  *  Condiment.  ^  Royal. 


272  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

least  from  within  a  century  and  a  half  of  his  time  been  the  law  of 
our  poetry  ?  Not,  if  we  assume  that  the  English  of  Chaucer's 
time  was  read  in  all  respects  precisely  like  that  of  our  own  day. 
But  are  we  warranted  in  assuming  this  ?  We  know  that  some 
changes  have  taken  place  in  the  national  pronunciation  within  a 
much  shorter  space.  The  accentuation  of  many  words  is  different 
even  in  Shakspeare  and  his  contemporaries  from  what  it  now  is  : 
even  since  the  language  has  been  what  we  may  call  settled,  and 
the  process  of  growth  in  it  nearly  stopped,  there  has  still  been 
observable  a  disposition  in  the  accent  or  syllabic  emphasis  to  pro- 
ject itself  Avith  more  precipitation  than  formerly,  to  seize  upon  a 
more  early  enunciated  part  in  dissyllables  and  other  polysyllabic 
words  than  that  to  which  it  was  wont  to  be  attached.  For  exam- 
ple, we  now  always  pronounce  the  M'ord  aspect  with  the  accent  on 
the  first  syllable  ;  in  the  time  of  Shakspeare  it  was  always  accented 
on  the  last.  We  now  call  a  certain  short  composition  an  essay  ;  but 
only  a  century  ago  it  was  called  an  essay :  "  And  write  next  win- 
ter," says  Pope,  "  more  essays  on  man."  Probably  at  an  earlier 
period,  when  this  change  was  going  on  more  actively,  it  was  part 
of  that  general  process  by  which  the  Teutonic,  or  native,  element 
in  our  language  eventually,  after  a  long  struggle,  acquired  the  as- 
cendency over  the  French  element ;  and,  if  so,  for  a  time  the 
accentuation  of  many  words  would  be  unfixed,  or  would  oscillate 
between  the  two  systems,  —  the  French  habit  of  reserving  itself 
for  the  final  syllable,  and  the  native  tendency  to  cling  to  a  prior 
portion  of  the  word.  This  appears  to  have  been  the  case  in  Chau- 
cer's day :  many  words  are  manifestly  in  his  poetry  accented  dif- 
ferently from  what  they  are  now  (as  is  proved,  upon  either  theory 
of  his  prosody,  when  they  occur  at  the  end  of  a  verse),  and  in 
many  also  he  seems  to  vary  the  accent  —  pronouncing,  for  instance, 
Jaiiyage  in  one  line,  langage  in  another  —  as  suits  his  convenience. 
l>ut  again,  under  the  tendency  to  elision  and  abbreviation  Avhich 
is  common  to  all  languages  in  a  state  of  growth,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  in  the  progress  of  the  English  tongue,  from  its  first 
subjection  to  literary  cultivation  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
rentury  to  its  final  settlement  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth,  it 
dropt  and  lost  altogether  many  short  or  unaccented  syllables. 
Some  of  these,  indeed,  our  poets  still  assert  their  right  to  revive 
in  pressing  circumstances  :  thus,  though  we  now  almost  universally 
elide  or  suppress  the  e  before  the  terminating  d  of  the  pieterites 


GEOFFREY    CHAUCER.  2^3 

and  past  participles  of  our  verbs,  it  is  still  sometimes  called  into 
life  again  to  make  a  distinct  syllable  in  verse.  Two  centuries  ago, 
when  perhaps  it  was  generally  heard  in  the  common  speech  of  the 
people  (as  it  still  is  in  some  of  our  provincial  dialects),  and  when  its 
suppression  in  reading  prose  would  probably  have  been  accounted 
an  irregularity,  it  was  as  often  sounded  in  verse  as  not,  and  the 
license  Avas  probably  considered  to  be  taken  when  it  was  elided. 
The  elision,  when  it  took  place,  was  generally  marked  by  the 
omission  of  the  vowel  in  the  spelling.  If  we  go  back  another  cen- 
tury, we  find  the  pronunciation  of  the  termination  as  a  distinct 
syllable  to  be  clearly  the  rule  and  the  prevailing  practice,  and  the 
suppression  of  the  vowel  to  be  the  rare  exception.  But  even  at 
so  late  a  date  as  tbe  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginnino;  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  other  short  vowels  as  well  as  this  were  still 
occasionally  pronounced,  as  they  were  almost  always  written. 
Both  the  genitive  or  possessive  singular  and  the  nominative  plu- 
ral of  nouns  were,  down  to  this  time,  made  by  the  addition  not 
of  s  only,  as  now,  but  of  es  to  the  nominative  singular  ;  and  the' 
es  makes  a  distinct  syllable  sometimes  in  Shakspeare,  and  often  im 
Spenser.  In  Chaucer,  therefore,  it  is  only  what  we  should  ex- 
pect that  it  should  generally  be  so  pronounced  :  it  is  evident  that 
originally,  or  when  it  first  ap^^eared  in  the  language,  it  always  was,, 
and  that  the  practice  of  running  it  and  the  preceding  syllable  to- 
gether, as  we  now  do,  has  only  been  gradually  introduced  and 
established. 

Up  to  tbis  point  Tyrwhitt's  theory  of  Chaucer's  versification 
may  be  said  to  be  admitted  on  all  hands.  It  is  allowed  that  in 
reading  Chaucer's  verses  we  should  generally  sound  as  distinct 
syllables  the  ed  at  the  end  of  ver1)s  and  the  es  w^hen  it  is  the  plu- 
ral or  possessive  termination  of  a  noun  ;  and  also  that  we  must 
give  many  words  a  different  accentuation  from  what  they  now  pos- 
sess. But  this  is  not  enough  to  make  the  verse  in  all  cases  syllab- 
ically  regular. 

The  deficiencies  of  Chaucer's  metres,  Tyrwhitt  contends,  are  to 
be  chiefly  supplied  by  the  pronunciation  of  what  he  calls  "  the  e 
feminine  ;  "  by  which  he  means  the  e  which  still  terminates  so 
many  of  our  words,  but  is  now  either  totally  silent  and  ineffective 
in  the  pronunciation,  or  only  lengthens  or  o-therwise  alters  the 
sound  of  the  preceding  vowel — in  either  case  is  entirely  inopera- 
tive upon  the  syllabication.     Thus,  such  words  as  larc/e,.  strangey 

VOL.  1.  35 


274  ENGLTSII   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

time^  &c..  he  conceives  to  be  often  dissyllables,  and  such  words  as 
Ilomaine^  sentence^  often  trisyllables,  in  Chancer.  Some  words 
also  he  holds  to  be  lenothened  a  syllable  by  the  intervention  of 
such  an  g,  now  omitted  both  in  speaking  and  writing,  in  the  mid- 
dle —  as  in  jug-e-ment,  eommand-e-ment,  voneh-e-safe,  &c. 

Wallis,  the  distinguished  mathematician,  in  his  Grammar  of  the 
English  Language  (written  in  Latin,  and  published  about  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century),  had  suggested,  that  the  origin 
of  this  silent  e  probably  was,  that  it  had  originally  been  pronoiu.ced, 
though  somewhat  obscurely,  as  a  distinct  syllable,  like  the  French 
e  feminine,  which  still  counts  for  such  in  the  prosody  of  that  lan- 
guage. Wallis  adds,  that  the  surest  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in 
our  old  poets,  with  whom  the  said  e  sometimes  makes  a  syllable, 
sometimes  not,  as  the  verse  requires.  "  With  respect  to  words 
imported  directly  from  France,"  observes  Tyrwhitt,  "  it  is  cer- 
tainly quite  natural  to  suppose  that  for  some  time  they  retained 
their  native  pronunciation."  "  We  have  not  indeed,"  he  con- 
tinues, "  so  clear  a  proof  of  the  original  pronunciation  of  the 
Saxon  part  of  our  language  ;  but  we  know,  from  general  observa- 
tion, that  all  changes  of  pronunciation  are  generally  made  l)y  small 
degrees  ;  and,  therefore,  when  we  find  that  a  great  nmnber  of 
those  words  which  in  Chaucer's  time  ended  in  e  originally  ended 
in  a,  we  may  reasonalily  presume  that  our  ancestors  first  passed 
from  the  broader  sound  of  a  to  the  thinner  sound  of  e  feminine, 
and  not  at  once  from  a  to  e  mute./  Besides,  if  the  final  e  in  such 
words  was  not  pronounced,  why  was  it  added  ?  From  the  time 
that  it  has  confessedly  ceased  to  be  pronounced  it  has  been  gradu- 
ally omitted  in  them,  except  where  it  may  be  supposed  of  use  to 
lengthen  or  soften  the  preceding  syllable,  as  in  hope,  name,  &c. 
But  according  to  the  ancient  orthogra])hy,  it  terminates  many 
words  of  Saxon  original  Avhere  it  cannot  have  been  added  for  any 
such  pur})0se,  as  herte,  childe,  olde,  wilde,  &c.  In  these,  therefore, 
we  must  suppose  that  it  Avas  pronoimced  as  e  feminine,  and  made 
part  of  a  second  sjdlable,  and  so,  by, a  parity  of  reason,  in  all  others 
in  which,  as  in  these,  it  appears  to  have  been  substituted  for  the 
Saxon  a."  From  all  this  Tyrwhitt  concludes  that  "  the  pronun- 
ciation of  the  e  feminine  is  founded  on  the  very  natiu'e  of  both  the 
French  and  Saxon  parts  of  our  language,"  and  therefore  that 
"what  is  generally  considered  as  an  e  nmte,  either  at  the  end  or 
in  the  middle  of  words,  was  anciently  pronoinu-ed,  but  obscurely, 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  275 

like  the  e  feminine  of  the  French."  In  a  note,  referring  to  an 
opinion  expressed  by  Wallis,  who,  observing  that  the  French  verj 
often  suppressed  this  short  e  in  their  common  speech,  was  led  to 
think  that  tlie  pronunciation  of  it  woukl  perhaps  shortly  be  in  all 
cases  disused  among  them,  as  among  ourselves,  he  adds :  "  The 
prediction  has  certainly  failed  ;  but,  notwithstanding,  I  will  ven- 
ture to  say  that  when  it  was  made  it  was  not  unworthy  of  Wallis's 
sagacity.  Unluckily  for  its  success,  a  number  of  eminent  writers 
happened  at  that  very  time  to  be  growing  up  in  France,  whose 
works,  having  since  been  received  as  standards  of  style,  must 
probably  fix  for  many  centuries  the  ancient  usage  of  the  e  feminine 
in  poetry,  and  of  course  give  a  considerable  check  to  the  natural 
progress  of  the  language.  If  the  age  of  Edward  III.  had  been 
as  favorable  to  letters  as  that  of  Louis  XIV. ;  if  Chaucer  and  his 
contemporary  poets  had  acquired  the  same  authority  here  that 
Corneille,  Moliere,  Racine,  and  Boileau  have  obtained  in  France  ;- 
if  their  works  had  been  published  by  themselves,  and  perpetuated 
in  a  genuine  state  by  printing ;  I  think  it  probable  that  the  e  femi- 
nine would  still  have  preserved  its  place,  in  our  poetical  language 
at  least,  and  certainly  without  any  prejudice  to  the  smoothness  of 
our  versification." 

In  supporting  his  views  by  these  reasons,  Tyrwhitt  avoids  having 
recourse  to  any  arguments  that  might  be  drawn  from  the  practice 
of  Chaucer  himself,  —  that  being  in  fact  the  matter  in  dispute  ;  but 
his  main  proposition,  to  the  extent  at  least  of  the  alleged  capacity 
of  the  now  silent  final  e  to  make  a  distinct  syllable  in  Chaucer's 
day,  appears  to  be  demonstrated  by  some  instances  in  the  poet's 
Avorks.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the  following  couplet  from  the 
Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales,  vmless  the  word  Rome  which 
ends  the  first  line  be  pronounced  as  a  dissyllable,  there  will  be  no 
rhyme :  — 

"  That  straight  was  comen  from  the  court  of  Rome  ; 
Full  loud  he  sang  —  Come  hither,  love,  to  me." 

So  again,  in  the  Canon  Yeoman's  Tale,  we  have  the  following 
lines :  — 

"  And  when  this  alchymister  saw  his  time, 
Ris'th  up,  Sir  Priest,  quod  he,  and  stondeth  by  me," 

m  the  first  of  which  time  must  evidently  in  like  manner  be  reaii 


276  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

as  a  word  of  two  syllables.  The  same  rhyme  occurs  in  a  quatrain 
in  the  Second  Book  of  the  Troilus  and  Creseide :  — 

"  All  easily  now,  for  the  love  of  Marte, 

Quod  Pandarus,  for  every  thing  hath  time, 
So  lonjj  abide,  till  that  the  night  departe 
For  all  so  sicker  as  thou  liest  here  by  me." 

Finding  Rome  and  time  to  be  clearly  dissyllables  in  these  passao-es, 
it  would  seem  that  we  ought,  as  Tyrwhitt  remarks  (Note  on  Prol. 
to  Cant.  Tales,  674),  to  have  no  scruple  so  to  pronounce  them 
and  other  similar  words  wherever  the  metre  requires  it. 

Such  is  the  outline  of  Tyrwhitt's  theory,  which,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, is  at  least  extremely  plausible,  and  wliich  was  long  uni- 
versally assented  to.  Of  late,  however,  it  has  been  attacked  from 
several  quarters,  and  on  various  grounds.  The  question  is  one 
which  is  of  fundamental  and  central  importance  in  the  history  of 
our  language  and  literature,  and  which  therefore  may  not  unprofit- 
ably  detain  us  for  a  fcAv  pages  more. 

TJie  first  person,  we  believe,  who  intimated  a  distinct  dissent 
from  Tyrwhitt's  conclusions  was  the  late  Dr.  Nott,  in  an  elaborate 
Dissertation  on  the  State  of  English  Poetry  before  the  Sixteenth 
Century,  prefixed  to  his  edition  of  The  Works  of  the  Earl  of  Sur- 
rey, 4to.,  Lon.  1815.  Dr.  Nott's  object  is  to  prove  that  the  present 
system  of  our  versification,  the  principle  of  which  is  syllabical  as 
well  as  accentual  regularity,  was  the  invention  of  Surrey  in  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  that  down  to  that  date  our 
verses  of  every  kind  were  all  wdiat  he  is  pleased  to  call  "  rhythmi- 
cal and  not  metrical;"  —  that  is,  as  he  explains  the  expression, 
"  they  did  not  consist,  as  our  verses  do  at  present,  of  a  certain 
number  of  feet,  each  foot  of  two  syllables,  but  they  were  con- 
structed so  as  to  be  recited  with  a  certain  rhythmical  cadence  ;  for 
which  reason  they  seem  to  have  been  called  Versos  of  cadence." 
(Diss.  p.  cli.) 

This  nomenclature,  at  least,  is  unfortunate.  The  phrase  "  verse 
of  cadence  "  is  Lydgate's ;  but,  whatever  may  be  its  import,  it 
certainly  was  not  the  only  kind  of  verse  known  in  Chaucer's  time ; 
for  in  his  House  of  Fame  (ii.  115),  Chaucer  himself  is  described 
in  an  address  to  him  by  the  Eagle  as  having  long  been  given  to 
apply  his  wit 

"  To  make  bokes,  songis,  and  ditis; 
In  rhyme  or  ellis  in  cadence." 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER.  277 

It  is  remarkable  that  this  passage,  so  clearly  implying,  as  it  would 
seem,  that,  besides  VQrse  of  cadence,  Chaucer  was  acquainted  with 
a  different  sort  of  verse,  which  he  distinguishes  by  the  name  of 
rhyme,  should  have  escaped  the  attention  of  Dr.  Nott,  or  should 
not  be  anywhere  noticed  by  him.  Further,  it  appears  fi'om  a  pas- 
sage in  the  Troilus  and  Creseide  (v.  1796),  which  the  learned 
editor  does  quote  (Diss,  clxiii.),  that  Chaucer  himself  considered 
his  verse  in  that  Avork  to  be  metrical :  it  is  where,  after  having 
thus  gracefully  dismissed  his  finished  work,  — ■ 

"  Go,  little  book  !  go,  little  tragedy ! 

There  God  my  Maker  yet  ere  that  I  die 
So  send  me  might  to  make  some  comedy : 

But,  little  book,  make  thou  thee  none  envie, 

But  subject  ben  unto  all  poesie, 
And  kiss  the  steps  whereas  thou  seest  pace 
Of  Virgil,  Ovid,  tlomer,  Lucan,  Stace,"  — 

he  proceeds  in  the  next  stanza  to  express  his  earnest  hope  that 
transcribers  and  reciters  may  be  withheld  fi-om  violating  his 
metre :  — 

"  And,  for  there  is  so  great  diversity 

In  English  and  in  writing  of  our  tongue, 
So  pray  I  to  God  that  none  miswrite  thee 
Ne  thee  mismetre  for  defaut  of  tongue." 

These  passages  may  not  be  absolutely  irreconcilable  with  the  posi- 
tion that  Chaucer's  verse  was  not  constructed  upon  the  principle 
of  syllabical  regularity ;  but  they  show  that  Dr.  Nott  has  not  been 
happy  in  the  selection  of  his  epithets  when  he  affirms  that  the 
only  kinds  of  verse  known  in  Chaucer's  time  were  all  "  verses  of 
cadence  "  and  all  "  not  metricaL"  To  speak,  as  he  does,  of  the 
feet  of  our  present  verses  as  all  consisting  each  of  tivo  syllables  is 
another  obvious  error  of  expression. 

Dr.  Nott  maintains  that  Chaucer's  supposed  employment  of  the 
final  and  now  silent  e  as  a  distinct  syllable  could  not  have  been 
derived  from  the  similar  use  of  the  e  feminine  in  French  poetry  ; 
but  he  satisfies  himself  with  a  mere  expression  of  his  conviction  on 
"•his  point.  "  It  remains,"  he  says,  "  yet  to  be  proved  that  the  use 
of  the  e  feminine,  such  as  is  here  contended  for,  was  then  estab- 
lished in  French  poetry.     It  seems  clear  to  me  that  it  was  not ; 


278  ENGLISH  ;  :    AND   LANGUAGE. 

nor  do  I  doubt  but  tha  vill  arrive  at  the  same  conclu- 

sion who  will  give  hin  ble  to  examine  dispassionately 

the  early  French  poets  larly  the  manuscript  copies  of 

their  works."     It  is  fc  French   verse  w^as  anciently 

written  witJi  less  reg; —      ^  it  afterwards  acquired;  and  in 

the  earlier  poets  of  that  language,  therefore,  the  prosodical  use  of 
what  is  called  the  e  feminine  may  both  seem  and  be  somewhat 
capricious ;  but  it  is  a  startling  assumption  that  such  use  is  alto- 
gether a  modern  invention.  Upon  this  supposition  it  behoved  Dr. 
Nott  to  point  out  when  and  by  whom  so  extraordinary  an  innova- 
tion was  introduced.  It  is  strange  he  should  not  have  perceived 
that  his  notion  attributes  to  some  comparatively  recent  French 
poet  the  very  same  thing  which  he  properly  objects  to  as  unhkely 
to  have  happened  in  the  case  of  Chaucer,  —  that,  in  his  own  words, 
"if  Chaucer  really  did  employ  the  e  feminine  in  his  versification 
in  the  manner  supposed,  it  must  have  been  a  contrivance  purely 
of  his  own  invention,"  —  "a  supposition  this,"  he  adds,  "which, 
I  apprehend,  few  will  be  disposed  to  maintain."  (Diss.  p.  cxliii.) 
But  the  supposition  in  question  is  one  which  nobody  has  ever 
advanced  with  regard  to  Chaucer.  "  It  appears  to  me  incredible,'* 
says  Dr.  Nott,  a  few  sentences  before,  "  that  Chaucer,  who  was 
remarkable  for  his  common  sense  and  practical  view  of  things, 
meaning  to  form  a  standard  stjde  in  language,  should  begin  by  in- 
troducing a  novel  mode  of  pronunciation,  which,  being  contrary  to 
common  usage,  could  not  be  generally  adopted."  This  is  an  ab- 
surdity of  the  learned  editor's  own  making.  Tyrwhitt  does  not 
imagine  that  Chaucer  introduced  any  novel  mode  of  pronunciation  ; 
he  conceives  that  the  pronunciation  of  the  language  found,  accord- 
.ng  to  his  view,  in  Chaucer's  poetry  was  the  common  pronunciation 
of  the  time.  If  the  poetry  of  Chaucer  is  to  be  so '  read,  so  un- 
doubtedly is  that  also  of  Langland,  and  Minot,  and  De  Brunne, 
and  Roljert  of  Gloucester,  and  all  our  other  early  English  poetry. 
What  Chaucer  introduced,  and  borrowed  from  the  poetry  of  France 
or  Italy,  if  he  introduced  or  thence  borrowed  anything,  was  not 
the  occasional  pronunciation  of  the  final  e  as  a  distinct  syllable,  but 
the  general  principle  of  metrical  regularity,  to  which  he  adapted 
this  and  all  the  other  points  of  the  ancient  and  establlsliod  national 
mode  of  speech.  What  particular  advantage  could  he  have  gained 
by  merely  multiplying  in  this  or  in  any  other  way  the  number  of 
syllables  in  the  lanfjuas-e  ?     It  is  an  odd  notion  for  Dr.  Nott  tc 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  279 

take  up  tliat  Chaucer's  only  object  in  his  supposed  reformation  of 
our  verse  was  to  contrive  some  ready  way  of  always  spinning  out 
his  line  into  ten  or  eleven  syllables.  A  metho.d  of  reducing  it 
within  those  dimensions  would  have  been  found  equally  convenient, 
if  he  had  ever  thought  of  resorting  to  any  such  unheard  of  and 
absurd  devices.  But  it  is  not  necessary  for  the  refutation  of  the 
claim  set  up  by  Dr.  Nott  in  favor  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  that  we 
should  suppose  Chaucer  to  have  made  any  change  whatever  in  the 
principles  of  English  versification.  If  it  be  only  admitted  that  his 
verses  are  constructed  upon  the  principle  of  syllabical  regularity,  it 
does  not  matter,  for  this  question,  whether  those  of  his  predecessors 
are  so  or  not.  His  versification  may  surpass  theirs  only  by  this 
common  principle  being  applied  by  him  with  more  care,  skill,  and 
success  than  it  was  by  them.  He  may  have  made  no  innovation 
in  the  structure  of  our  verse  whatever,  and  borrowed  nothing  from 
the  poets  of  France  or  Italy  except  only  their  superior  correctness 
and  eleoance. 

The  only  one  of  Dr.  Nott's  arguments  which  has  much  or  indeed 
any  apparent  force  is  that  which  he  draws  from  the  manner  in 
which  all  our  early  poetry,  that  of  Chaucer  included,  is  stated  to 
be  written  in  the  ancient  manuscripts.  "  In  all  those  MSS.,"  he 
says,  "  the  csesura  in  the  middle,  and  the  pause  at  the  end  of  the 
line,  are  pointed  out  with  a  precision  that  leaves  no  room  for  con- 
jecture. The  points  or  marks  made  use  of  have  no  reference 
whatever  to  punctuation  :  they  never  occur  but  at  the  place  of 
caesura  in  the  middle  of  the  line,  or  at  the  pause  at  the  end  of  it ; 
and  are  often  made  with  red  paint,  the  better  to  catch  the  eye. 
When  the  mark  of  caesura  is  omitted,  an  interval  is  generally  left 
in  the  middle  of  the  line,  between  the  two  hemistichs.  The  second 
hemistich  frequently  begins  with  a  capital,  though  the  introduction 
of  a  capital  there,  instead  of  assisting,  often  confuses  the  sense." 
(Diss.  p.  clii.)  "  An  impartial  consideration  of  the  subject,"  he 
afterwards  observes,  "  and  a  reference  to  good  MSS.,  must,  I 
think,  lead  us  to  conclude  that  Chaucer  had  not  a  metrical  system 
of  numbers  in  contemplation ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  de- 
signed his  verses  to  be  read,  like  those  of  all  his  contemporaries, 
with  a  caesura  and  rhythmical  cadence."  (Id.,  p.  clix.)  Again, 
speaking  particularly  of  the  manuscripts  of  Chaucer's  poems,  he 
says,  "  In  these  MSS.  either  the  caesura,  or  the  pause  at  the  end 
of  the  fine,  and  sometimes  both  the  pause   and  the  c^sura,  are 


280  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

almost  always  noted,  and  that  in  so  careful  a  manner  as  makes  it 
(questionable  whether  there  be  any  MS.  of  good  date  and  authority 
in  which  one  or  both  of  them  is  not  noted,  either  by  a  point  or  a 
virgule  ;  though  the  virgule  or  point  may  in  some  instances  have 
been  obliterated.  Why  this  particularity,  which  mnst  have  been 
designed  to  answer  some  practical  purpose,  should  nut  have  been 
noticed  by  the  several  editors  of  Chaucer's  works,  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  say.  The  omission  is  the  more  remarkable,  as  it  could  not  have 
escaped  observation  that  all  the  MSS.  agree  in  fixing  the  csesura  in 
every  line,  Avith  hardly  any  variation,  at  the  same  place.  This  is 
another  evident  mark  of  design,  amounting  to  little  less  than  proof 
that  Chaucer  not  only  meant  his  verses  to  be  rhythmical,  but  did 
all  he  could  to  settle  what  their  rhythm  should  be."  (Id.,  p. 
clxiii.)  Finally,  he  remarks  on  the  subject  of  the  caesura :  —  "  Its 
use,  and  the  object  proposed  by  it,  is  confirmed  by  the  appearance 
of  the  early  printed  editions  of  Chaucer's  works.  In  the  editions 
subsequent  to  1532  the  cffisura  is  almost  entirely  disused  ;  if  it  was 
retained,  it  seems  to  have  been  retained  bv  accident.  The  reason 
is  obvious.  Our  English  versification  had  then  become  metrical. 
The  caesura  was,  therefore,  no  longer  wanted  for  general  purposes; 
it  Avas  consequently  omitted,  though,  strictly  speaking,  in  some 
\\orks  it  ought  to  have  been  retained.  But  in  the  editions  pre- 
vious to  1532  the  case  was  different.  The  rhythmical  cadence  was 
thi'u  still  in  use,  and  therefore  the  division  of  the  hemistich  was 
still  to  be  coiitinued."  (Id.,  p.  clxix.)  Surrey's  poems  were  first 
})rinted  in  1557  ;  but  there  were  editions  of  Chaucer  in  1542,  1546, 
and  1555,  which  must  be  understood  according  to  this  statement  to 
be  all  without  the  caesura.  Would  it  not  appear,  then,  that  metri- 
cal verse,  upon  Dr.  Nott's  own  shovA-ing,  had  been  introduced  from 
fifteen  to  twenty-five  years  before  Siu-rey's  poems  were  given  to 
the  world?  It  is  true  they  were  written  some  years  before,  for 
Surrey  was  ])ut  to  death  in  January  1547  ;  but  they  can  hai-dly 
have  been  supposed  to  have  been  already  so  widely  diffused  in 
manuscript  as  to  have  revolutionized  the  national  versification. 
AVhen  the  Chaucer  of  1542,  the  first  edition  without  the  ca^sia'a, 
\\  as  published,  Surrey,  according  to  the  common  account,  was  not 
more  than  twenty-three  or  twenty-four  years  old.  Even  Dr.  Nott 
ilocs  not  pretend  that  he  was  more  than  twenty-six.^ 

What  Dr.  Nott  calls  the  pause  at  tlie  end  of  the  line  seems  tc 
1  See  Memoir,  prefixed  to  Works,  p.  x. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  281 

Iiave  nothing  to  clo  with  the  question  he  raises  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  Chaucer's  versification.  Of  course,  it  is  admitted  u])on 
either,  and  must  be  admitted  upon  any,  system  that  a  hne  is  sucli 
an  integral  section  as  maybe  properly  separated  by  a  point  or  other 
divisional  mark,  if  it  be  thought  necessary.  As  poetry  is  now  writ- 
ten, nothing  of  the  kind  is  required;  the  limits  of  the  line  or  verse 
cannot  be  more  distinctly  indicated  than  they  are  by  each  being 
kept  standing  by  itself;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  what  practical 
piarpose  could  be  contemplated  by  retaining  the  points  at  the  end 
of  the  line  after  this  method  was  introduced.  Probably  it  was 
merely  a  retention  from  habit  of  a  usage  to  which  transcribers  and 
readers  had  become  accustomed,  and  which  was  no  doubt  very  ser- 
viceable while  verse  was  written  continuously  like  prose,  as  it  gen- 
erally or  always  Avas  in  the  earliest  era  of  our  language.  We  may, 
therefore,  put  aside  altogether  so  much  of  the  above  statement  as 
refei's  to  this  final  point  or  pause.  Let  us  see,  then,  how  the  fact 
stands  as  to  the  other  and  only  important  mark,  that  of  the  cjesura, 
as  Dr.  Nott  calls  it,  in  the  middle  of  each  verse.  He  sets  oiit  by 
telling  us  that  both  the  caesura  in  the  middle  and  the  pause  at  the 
end  of  the  line  are  always  pointed  out  with  perfect  precision  ;  bvit 
this  broad  assertion  is  very  far  from  being  adhered  to  when  he 
comes  to  specify  particulars.  The  next  form  in  which  we  lui\e 
the  statement  is,  that,  "  when  the  mark  of  Cifisura  is  omitted,  an 
interval  is  generally  left  in  the  middle  of  the  line."  Then,  hi  still 
more  qualified  phrase,  we  are  informed  that  in  the  manuscripts  of 
Chaucer's  poetry  ^'•either  the  caesura  or  the  pause  at  i\vi  end  of  the 
line,  and  soinetinies  both,  are  almost  always  noted."  He  persists, 
however,  in  maintaining  the  careful  manner  in  which  this  notation 
of  the  pause  or  pauses  has  been  attended  to  in  all  good  manuscripts, 
although  he  admits  that  the  virgule  or  point  may  in  some  instances 
have  been  obliterated ;  and  he  affirms,  as  we  have  seen,  (though 
not  very  consistently  with  his  previous  admission  of  its  being  only 
in  some  manuscripts  that  the  caesura  is  noted  at  all,)  "  that  all  the 
manuscripts  [of  Chaucer]  agree  in  fixing  the  caesura,  in  every  line, 
with  hardly  any  variation,  at  the  same  place." 

Let  us  now  turn  to  his  examples.  One  will  suffice  to  show  how 
far  his  statements  are  borne  out,  even  in  their  most  limited  form. 
The  first  seven  lines  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  are  professed  to  be 
given  fi'om  three  different  manuscripts.  Of  one  of  these,  the 
Lansdowne  MS.  907,  the  account  given  is,  that  in  this  passage  the 

VOL,  I.  36 


282  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

caesura  or  middle  pause  is  not  marked  at  all,  either  by  point  or  vir- 
gule ;  but  that  elsewhere  we  have  the  lines  cut,  not  uniformly  into 
two  portions  by  a  single  virgnile,  but  sometimes  into  two,  sometimes 
into  three,  sometimes  into  foui*  portions  by  a  succession  of  such 
strokes.  This  is  a  phenomenon  of  which  Dr.  Nott's  theory  seems 
to  take  no  account.  All  he  has  to  say  in  regard  to  it  is,  that  the 
fi'equent  recurrence  of  the  virgule  may  be  suspected  to  be  intended 
*'  to  mark  some  rules  in  recitation,  with  which  we  now  are  unac- 
quainted." The  two  other  manuscripts,  Harl.  jVISS.  1758  and 
7333,  as  here  quoted,  differ  as  to  the  place  of  the  middle  pause  in 
the  very  first  line ;  and  in  three  of  the  remaining  six  Imes  where 
the  one  has  onlj^  a  point  the  other  has  both  a  point  and  a  virgnle, 
in  a  fourth  verse  only  a  virgule,  and  in  a  fifth  a  point  followed  by 
a  capital  letter.  But  it  is  hard  to  say  what  dependence  can  be 
safely  placed  even  upon  this  apparent  amount  of  agreement.  It 
so  happens  that  the  same  passage  has  been  printed  from  the  same 
two  manuscripts  by  Mr.  Guest  in  his  History  of  English  Rhythms 
(2  vols.  8vo.,  London,  1838,  vol.  i.,  p.  215),  and  the  variations 
between  his  transcripts  and  those  of  Dr.  Nott  are  not  a  little  start- 
ling. Dr.  Nott  evidently  did  not  mtend  to  preserve  the  old  sj^ell- 
ing,  although  for  the  object  he  had  here  in  view  that  would  have 
been  almost  necessary ;  but  some  of  the  liberties  he  appears  to 
have  taken  go  far  beyond  the  reformation  of  the  antique  verse  in 
that  particular.  In  his  extract  fi-om  the  MS.  1758,  which  extends 
to  eight  verses,  in  the  first  line  he  might  perhaps  defend  his  change 
of  wit  into  ivitli,  and  of  swote  (for  sweet)  into  soote ;  in  the  third 
line,  vain  instead  of  veyne  (or  vein)  is  probably  a  typographical 
erratum  ;  in  the  fourth,  the  substitution  of  vertu,  for  virtue,  though 
not  very  intelligible,  and  indeed  the  very  reverse  of  what  might 
have  been  expected,  is  still  not  a  very  wide  deviation  ;  but  the 
])riiiting  of  liad  for  hath  in  the  second  line  is  an  instance  of  mipar- 
donable  inattention  ;  and  to  transform  the  eighth  line  from 

"  Into  the  ram     his  half  cours  roniie." 
as  it  stands  in  Mr.  Guest's  transcript,  into 

"  Hath  in  the  Ram  .  his  half  course  y-run." 

13  proceeding  to  so  great  a  length  as  to  destroy  all  reliance  upon 
such  a  mode  of  pretending  to  exhibit  the  testimony  of  ancient 
manuscri])ts,  or  upon  any  conclusions  so  supported.  But  the  dis- 
crepancies between  the  two  transcripts  of  the  other  MS.  bear  more 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER.  283 

upon  tlie  question  of  the  middle  pause  or  c«sura ;  for,  according 
to  Mr.  Guest's  exhibition  of  this  text,  there  is  in  three  of  the  seven 
hnes,  the  first,  second,  and  sixth,  actually  no  mark  of  any  such 
pause  at  all.  Mr.  Guest  states  that  in  this  manuscript  "  the  pause, 
when  inserted,  is  often  nothing  more  than  a  mere  scratch  of  the 
pen ;  "  and,  so  far  from  regarding  either  manuscript  as  a  good  one, 
or  as  carefully  written  in  regard  to  the  divisional  point,  he  describej 
"  the  occasional  omission  or  misplacing  of  the  dot  as  perfectly  in 
keeping  with  the  general  inaccuracy  "  of  both.  His  extract  extends 
to  eighteen  lines ;  and  in  regard  to  eight  of  the  ten  not  already 
examined  we  are  enabled  to  compare  the  two  Harleian  MSS.  with 
another  then  belonging  to  the  Marquess  of  Stafford,  of  which  a 
transcript  to  that  extent  is  given  by  Dr.  Nott.  Passing  over  other 
differences,  we  find  that  in  the  Harl.  MS.  7333,  the  middle  pause 
is  wanting  altogether  in  the  second,  fourth,  and  eighth ;  that  it  is 
also  wanting  in  the  third  of  the  Stafford  MS. ;  and  that  in  the 
fifth  it  is  placed  differently  in  all  the  three  MSS.  It  is  also  want- 
ing in  the  ninth  fine  m  the  Harl.  MS.  1758. 

It  seems  plain  that  of  such  confusion  and  uncertainty  as  this 
little  or  nothing  can  be  made,  and  that  any  attempt  to  exhibit,  in 
printing  Chaucer's  poetry,  the  csesura  or  middle  pause  in  each 
verse  as  noted  in  the  manuscripts  would  be  impracticable,  even  if 
it  were  ever  so  imj^ortant.  But  is  this  cassural  mark,  in  fact,  of 
any  importance  in  determining  the  nature  of  Chaucer's  versifica- 
tion ?  Mr.  Guest  holds,  as  well  as  Dr.  Nott,  that  each  line  in 
Chaucer  consists  properly  of  two  parts,  which  the  ca3sural  mark 
was  designed  to  indicate :  "  Still,  as  it  seems  to  me,"  he  observes, 
after  describing  the  irregularity  with  which  this  mark  is  introduced 
in  the  manuscripts,  "  we  can  only  come  to  one  conclusion  in  exam- 
ining these  manuscripts  ;  namely,  that  each  verse  was  looked  upon 
as  made  up  of  two  sections,  precisely  in  the  same  way  as  the  allit- 
erative couplet  of  the  Anglo-Saxons."  ^  Yet  Mr.  Guest  finds  no 
difficulty  in  reconciling  with  the  principles  of  syllabical  rhythm 
this  fact  of  the  division  of  each  verse  by  the  caesural  mark,  which 
Dr.  Nott  regards  as  demonstrative  of  the  rhythm  being  not  syllabi- 
cal but  only  accentual. 

Nor  is  there,  in  truth,  anything  in  the  caesura  to  decide  the  mat- 
ter either  one  way  or  the  other.  The  middle  pause,  as  found  in 
the  manuscripts  of  Chaucer,  appears  to  be  as  consistent  with  the 
1  History  of  English  Rhythms,  i.  216. 


'.84  ENGLISH  LITERATURP:   AND   LANGUAGE. 

syllabical  as  with  the  merely  accentual  scanning  of  the  verse,  if 
the  right  text  be  followed.  For  example,  in  printing  the  first  eigh- 
teen lines  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  with  accentual  marks,  to  show 
in  what  manner  the  verse  was,  as  he  apprehends,  recited,  Dr.  Nott 
gives  the  first  line  thus  :  — 

"  When  that  April  |  with  Iiis  shoures  soote  ; " 

marking  the  three  syllables,  when^  with,  and  sJtour  as  long,  the  last 
syllable  of  April  and  the  word  soote  with  a  grave  accent,  and  the 
syllables  that,  his,  and  es  (of  shoures')  as  short ;  the  first  syllable 
of  April  bemg  left  without  any  mark.  It  is  not  very  clear  what 
all  the  parts  of  this  apparatus  of  notation  are  intended  to  mean ; 
but  certainly,  however  the  words  so  set  down  may  be  meant  to 
be  read  or  sung,  they  are  not  reducible  to  the  regular  metre  of  our 
modern  heroic  verse.  It  is  by  no  means  either  certain  or  probable, 
however,  that  when  is  Chaucer's  w^ord  ;  the  reading  adopted  by 
Tyrwhitt  is  whanne,  which  he  regards  as  a  dissyllable,  and  he  has 
as  good  a  right  to  select  that  form,  which  occurs  in  some  of  the 
manuscripts,  as  Dr.  Nott  has  to  select  the  monosyllabic  form,  when, 
or  ivhan,  from  other  manuscripts,  for  the  purposes  of  his  theory. 
The  next  five  lines  are  every  one  of  them,  even  as  printed  by  Dr. 
Nott,  of  perfect  metrical  regularity ;  the  caesura  is  also  where  it 
should  be  upon  either  system ;  the  only  thing  that  interferes  with 
their  bemg  read  like  any  modern  English  heroic  verse  is  Dr.  Nott's 
own  notation  of  their  supposed  temporal  and  accentual  character. 
All  that  is  wantino;  to  make  the  seventh  line  a  correct  modern 
A'erse,  is  to  be  read  younge  (in  two  syllables)  with  Tyrwhitt,  in- 
stead of  young  with  Nott,  there  being  manuscript  authority  for 
both  forms.     The  eighth  line  Dr.  Nott  prints  — 

"  Hath  in  the  Ram  |  lialf  his  course  y-run." 

We  doiibt  whether  there  be  any  authority  for  this  form  of  the 
verse  ;  but,  at  any  rate,  Tyrwhitt's  form, 

"  Hath  in  the  Ram  his  halfe  cours  y-ronne  " 

(where  haJfe  is  a  dissyllable),  is  supported  by  the  Harleian  MS. 
7383.  In  the  ninth  line  Nott  obtains  his  text  by  changing  the 
dissyllabic  smale  of  both  the  Harleian  MSS.  into  the  modern  mono- 
syllable small.  The  next  three  lines  are  equally  regular  upon 
either  system.     The  thirteenth  line  will  scan  metrically,  even  aa 


GEOFFREY    CHAUCER.  285 

given  by  Nott,  provided  we  reckon  strange  a  dissyllable  ;  but  we 
do  not  know  where  he  has  sot  his  text :  it  does  not  agree  wit! 
either  of  the  Harleian  MSS.,  and  as  little  with  the  Stafford  MS 
as  exhibited  by  himself  in  another  page.  The  last  five  lines,  again, 
are  regular  upon  both  systems. 

Upon  the  whole  it  does  not  appear  that  the  ctesural  mai*k  of  the 
manuscripts  can  be  regarded  as  indicating  or  proving,  at  the  most, 
anything  more  than  that,  by  the  rule  of  the  verse,  the  place  where 
it  fell  should  always  be  at  the  termination  and  never  in  the  middle 
of  a  word  —  a  rule  which  is  also  generally,  though  not  always, 
observed  in  our  modern  prosody.  As  far  as  can  be  ascertained, 
the  two  parts  into  which,  when  it  is  employed,  it  divides  each  of 
Chaucer's  lines,  are  as  much  the  hemistichs  of  what  Dr.  Nott  calls 
a  metrical,  as  of  what  he  calls  a  merely  rhythmical,  verse. 

We  do  not  understand  what  notion  of  the  harmony  of  English 
verse  can  have  led  Dr.  Nott  to  quote  the  following  line  from  the 
Canterbury  Tales  — 

"  In  her  is  high  beauty  withonten  pride  "  — 

as  one  which,  unless  read  rhythmically  (as  he  calls  it),  has  no  pinn- 
ciple  of  harmony  at  all,  even  if  we  read  heauty  with  the  accent  on 
the  last  syllable.  It  is  in  fact  a  perfectly  correct  heroic  verse 
according  to  the  strictest  laws  of  our  modern  prosody.  Yet  he 
asserts  that,  if  Chaucer  had  followed  that  prosody,  he  would  un- 
questionably have  written  the  verse  — 

"  In  her  high  beauty  is  withouten  pride  "  — • 

thus  making  it  a  perfect  Iambic  decasyllabic  line,  "by  the  transpo- 
sition of  a  single  word."  Let  the  reader  who  has  any  feeling  of 
Chaucer's  direct,  natural,  manly  diction,  or  even  of  the  most  com- 
mon proprieties  of  speech,  decide.  Yet  upon  this  single  instance 
Dr.  Nott  lays  it  down  that  a  large  proportion  of  Chaucer's  verses 
cannot  be  read  metrically  "  withovit  doing  the  utmost  violence  to 
our  language  ;  all  which  verses  are  h.armonious  as  verses  of  cadence, 
if  read  with  the  caesura  rhythmically ;  "  and  further,  that  all  those 
verses  might  easily,  by  a  slight  transposition,  have  been  reduced  to 
the  piu'e  Iambic  decasyllabic  measure,  "  if  Chaucer  had  either 
fiuown  that  mode  of  versification,  or  intended  to  have  adopted  it." 
Such  an  assertion,  by  the  by,  would  be  a  somewhat  bold  one,  e^en 
if  a  hundred  instances  were  quoted  instead  of  one,  and  those  really 
instances  in  point. 


*286  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

While  insisting  that  Chaucer's  verses  are  constructed  upon  what 
he  describes  as  the  rhytlniiical  principle,  which  he  has  begun  by 
defining  as  independent  of  the  number  of  feet  or  syllables,  Dr. 
Nott,  strangely  enough,  admits  that  the  chief  improvement  which 
Chaucer  made  in  our  versification  was  the  introduction  of  the  line 
of  ten  syllables  (Diss.  p.  clviii.) ;  and  he  afterwards  repeatedly  calls 
his  verses  "  Decasyllabic  "  (or,  as  he  more  usually  chooses  to  ex- 
press himself,  "  Decasyllabics  ").  But  he  cannot  possibly  mean 
that  Chaucer's  versification  is,  upon  his  theory,  really  syllabically, 
au}^  more  than  that  it  is  accentually,  correct,  according  to  our 
modern  notions.  In  fact,  of  the  eighteen  lines  wdiich  he  has 
printed  from  the  commencement  of  the  Canterbury  Tales,  "  to 
show^  in  what  manner  rhythmical  Decasyllabic  verses  were  re- 
cited," no  fewer  than  seven  are,  according  to  his  own  notation,  not 
decasyllabic  at  all :  they  are  verses  of  nine  syllables  (sometimes 
with  an  unaccented  syllable  at  the  end,  which  counts  for  nothing 
in  prosody),  not  of  ten.^ 

Finally,  before  dismissing  Dr.  Nott  and  his  theory,  we  may  re- 
mark that  no  attempt  is  made  by  him  or  it  to  meet  the  apparently 
conclusive  proof  of  the  now  silent  final  e  having  been  enunciable 
as  a  distinct  syllable  in  Chaucer's  age  derived  from  the  occurrence 
of  such  rhymes  as  Ro-me  and  to  me,  ti-me  and  bi/  me.  Indeed  he 
expressly  states  (Diss.  p.  clxxxiii.  note),  that  with  the  exception  of 
a  passage  in  Occleve,  of  wdiich  he  shows  that  the  received  reading 
is  most  probably  incorrect  (and  which,  by  the  by,  would  scarcely 
have  been  in  point  at  any  rate),  he  had  nowhere  met  with  a  single 
rhyme  "  to  justify  the  notion  that  the  final  e,  wdiich  w^e  properly 
call  the  e  mute,  was  ever  pronounced." 

1  Either  from  a  misprint  or  from  somethinGC  in  his  sj"stem  of  notation  which  is 
not  explained,  it  is  difficult  with  regard  to  certain  of  tliese  lines  to  say  in  what 
manner  Dr.  Nott  intends  that  they  should  be  read.  For  instance,  in  the  couplet 
(as  he  prints  it), 

"  And  palnieres  to  seeken  ^tran^e  strondes, 
To  serve  hahvcs  couth  in  sundry  loiidcs," 

the  appearance  of  ten  syllables  is  given  to  each  of  the  two  lines  by  throwing  a 
double  accent  upon  the  terminating  words  xtvondes,  Idndes  —  as  if  the  rh^yme  lay  in 
Ihe  des.  But  it  is  plain  that,  if  slrondcs  and  londes  are  to  be  accounted  dissyllables, 
we  have  here  what  is  called  a  double  rhyme  —  which  can  only  count  as  one  syllable 
In  the  measure — just  as  in  the  immediately  preceding  couplet,  wliioh  Dr.  Nott 
himself  prints  — 

"  So  pricketli  tlicin  natiire  in  their  courages; 
Then  longen  folk  to  go  on  pilgrimages." 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  287 

More  recently,  however,  TvrAvliitt's  main  principle  for  the  scan 
ning  of  Chaucer's  verse,  the  occasional  pronunciation  of  this  now 
mute  final  e,  has  been  attacked,  or  at  least  denounced,  on  other 
grounds  and  by  a  higher  authority.  The  late  Mr.  Richard  Price, 
in  his  edition  of  Warton's  History  of  English  Poetry  (4  vols.  8vo. 
Lon.  1824),  assigns  an  origin  to  this  termination  which  he  con- 
siders to  be  altogether  irreconcilable  with  Tyrwhitt's  V\qw  of  it. 
The  change  of  orthography  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  forms  which 
has  taken  place  in  a  numerous  class  of  our  English  words,  Mr. 
Price  maintains,  "  has  arisen  solely  from  the  abolition  of  the  accen- 
tual marks  which  distinguish  the  long  and  short  syllables."  "As 
a  substitute  for  the  former,"  he  says,  "  the  Norman  scribes,  or  at 
least  the  disciples  of  the  Norman  school  of  writing,  had  recourse  to 
the  analogy  which  governed  the  French  language  ;  and,  to  avoid  the 
confusion  which  would  have  sprung  from  observing  the  same  form  in 
writing  a  certain  number  of  letters  differently  enounced  and  bear- 
ing a  different  meaning,  they  elongated  the  word,  or  attached  as  it 
were  an  accent  instead  of  superscribing  it.  From  hence  has  ema- 
nated an  extensive  list  of  terms  having  final  e's  and  duplicate  con- 
sonants ;  which  were  no  more  the  representatives  of  additional 
syllables  than  the  acute  or  grave  accent  in  the  Greek  language  is 
a  mark  of  metrical  quantity."  And  he  adds  in  a  note,  —  "  The 
converse  of  this  can  only  be  maintained  under  an  assumption  that 
the  Anglo-Saxon  words  of  one  syllable  multiplied  their  numbers 
after  the  Conquest,  and  in  some  succeeding  century  subsided  into 
their  primitive  simplicity."  ^  Again,  he  observes  in  another  place, 
"  The  Anglo-Saxon  a  was  pronounced  like  the  Danish  aa,  the 
Swedish  a,  or  our  modern  o  in  more,  fore,  &c.  The  strong  intona- 
tion given  to  the  words  in  which  it  occurred  would  strike  a  Nor- 
man ear  as  indicating  the  same  orthography  that  marked  the  long 
syllables  of  his  native  tongue,  and  he  w^ould  accordingly  write 
them  with  an  e  final.  It  is  from  this  cause  that  we  find  bar,  Sc\r, 
hat,  bat,  wa,  an,  ban,  stan,  &c.,  written  bore  (bore),  sore,  bote 
(hot),  bote  (boat),  woe,  one,  bone,  stone,  some  of  which  have 
been  retained.  The  same  principle  of  elongation  was  extended  to 
all  the  Anglo-Saxon  vowels  that  were  accentuated  ;  such  as  r^c, 
reke  (reek).  Iff,  life,  g6de,  gode  (good),  scur,  shure  (showei*) ; 
and  hence  the  majority  of  those  e's  mute  upon  which  Mr.  Tyr- 
whitt  has  expended  so  much  unfounded  speculation."^  And  the 
1  Preface  to  Warton,  p.  (114).  '•'  Note  to  Warton,  Vol.  I.  p.  c.  ii. 


288  EXGLTSH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

complete  development  of  these  doctrines  is  promised  in  a  supple- 
mentaiy  volinne,  which  was  announced  under  the  title  of  Illustra- 
tions of  Warton's  History  of  English  Poetry,  containing  [among 
other  things]  an  examination  of  Mv.  Tyrwhitt's  Essay  on  the 
Lann-uao-e  and  Versification  of  Chaucer  ;  but  which  has  never 
appeared. 

Upon  this  \aew  of  the  matter  let  us  hear  a  li^-ing  writer  who 
must  be  regarded  as  the  highest  authoritv  on  the  earlier  forms  of 
the  language.  "  The  most  frequent  vowel  endings  of  Anglo-Saxon 
substantives,"  says  Mr.  Guest  (Hist,  of  Eng.  Rliythms,  i.  26), 
"  were  a,  e,  u.  All  the  three  were  in  the  fourteenth  centuiy 
represented  by  the  e  final."  And  afterwards,  in  explaining  the 
origin  of  our  present  mode  of  indicating  the  long  quantity  of  a 
vowel  preceding  a  single  consonant  by  the  annexation  of  an  g,  he 
observes  (Id.  p.  108)  :  —  "  In  tlie  Anglo-Saxon  there  was  a  great 
number  of  words  which  had,  as  it  were,  two  forms  :  one  ending  in 
a  consonant,  the  other  in  a  vowel.  In  the  time  of  Chaucer  all  the 
difterent  vowel  endings  were  represented  by  the  e  final ;  and  so 
great  is  the  number  of  words  which  this  writer  uses,  sometimes  as 
monosyllables,  and  sometimes  as  dissyllables,  with  the  addition  of 
the  e,  that  he  has  been  accused  of  adding  to  the  number  of  his  syl- 
lables whenever  it  suited  the  convenience  of  his  rhythm.  In  his 
works  we  find  hert  and  Iterte^  bed  and  hedde^  erth  and  erthe,  &c.  In 
the  Anglo-Saxon  we  find  corresponding  duplicates,  the  additional 
syllable  giving  to  the  noun,  in  almost  every  case,  a  new  declension, 
and  in  most  a  new  gender.  In  some  foAv  cases  the  final  e  had  become 
mute  even  before  the  time  of  Chaucer,  and  was  wholly  lost  in  the 
period  which  elapsed  between  his  death  and  the  accession  of  the 
Tudors.  Still,  however,  it  has  its  ground  in  our  manuscripts,  and 
ure  our,  rose  a  rose,  &c.,  though  pronounced  as  monosyllables,  were 
still  written  according  to  the  old  spelling.  Hence  it  came  gradu- 
ally to  be  considered  as  a  rule,  that  when  a  syllable  ended  in  a 
single  consonant  and  mute  e  the  vowel  was  long."  "  Such,"  con- 
cludes Mr.  Guest,  "  is  clearly  the  origin  of  this  very  peculiar  mode 
of  indicating  the  long  vowel  :  and  it  seems  to  me  so  obvious,  that 
I  always  felt  surprised  at  the  many  and  various  opinions  that  have 
been  hazarded  upon  the  subject.  We  could  not  expect  much  in- 
formation from  men  who,  like  Tyrwhitt,  were  avowedly  ignorant 
of  the  early  state  of  our  language  ;  but  even  Hickes  had  his 
loubts  whether  the   f  nal  e  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  words  were  mute 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  289 

or  vocal ;  and  Rask,  notwithstanding  his  triumph  over  that  far 
sui)erior  scholar,  lias  fallen  into  this  his  greatest  blunder.  Price, 
whose  good  sense  does  not  often  fail  him,  supposes  this  mode  of 
spelling  to  be  the  work  of  the  Norman,  and  the  same  as  the  '  or- 
thography that  marked  the  long  syllables  of  his  native  tongue.' 
As  if  the  e  final  were  mute  in  Norman  French  !  "  Throughout 
his  work,  Mr.  Guest  assumes  the  syllabic  quality  of  the  final  e  in 
ChaiTcer's  verse,  exactly  as  is  done  by  Tyrwhitt.  "  After  the 
death  of  Chaucer,"  he  asserts  (vol.  i.  p.  80),  "  the  final  e,  so  com- 
monly used  by  that  poet  and  his  contemporaries,  fell  into  disuse. 
Hence  many  dissyllables  became  words  of  one  syllable,  mone  be- 
came moon,  and  aunne  sun  ;  and  the  compounds  into  which  they 
entered  were  curtailed  of  a  syllable."  If  it  be  meant  that  the 
change  spoken  of  took  place  immediately  or  very  soon  after  the 
death  of  Chaucer,  the  assertion  is  one  which  it  would  probably  be 
somewhat  difficult  to  make  good.  We  should  doubt  if  the  new 
pronunciation  was  generally  introduced  before  the  commencement 
of  the  sixteenth  century.^ 

1  An  important  view  of  the  final  e  in  tlie  English  of  the  period  from  the  Norman 
Conquest  down  at  least  to  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  has  been  for  the  first 
time  propounded  by  Mr.  Guest.  He  believes  that  it  has,  at  least  in  many  cases,  a 
grammatical,  as  well  as  a  prosodical,  value ;  that  it  is  the  remnant  of  or  substitute 
for  the  vowel  of  inflection  belonging  to  the  original  form  of  the  language.  Thus, 
in  the  expression  shoiires  sate  (showers  sweet),  he  holds  the  e  of  sole  to  be  the  sign 
of  the  plural ;  and  that  of  rote  in  the  expression  to  the  rote  (to  the  root}  to  be  the 
distinctive  termination  of  the  dative  singular.  In  other  cases,  again,  he  conceives 
that  the  e  distinguishes  what  is  called  (as  in  modern  German)  the  definite  from  the 
indefinite  form  of  the  adjective ;  in  others,  the  adverb  from  the  adjective  (bn'ghte, 
for  example,  being  the  former,  equivalent  to  our  modern  brightly,  bright  the  latter). 
See  his  English  Rhytlims,  i.  29-34.  It  is,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  this  sliort  e,  we 
may  here  remark,  commuted  into  a  short  i,  which  we  have  in  such  modern  forms 
as  handicraft  and  handiwork.  They  are  other  forms  of  handcraft  and  handwork  (both 
recently,  if  not  still,  belonging  to  tlie  language),  not  of  handy  craft  and  handy  work, 
which  would  be  expressions  having  a  different  meaning  altogether.  A  misunder- 
standing of  this  matter  is  probably  what  has  led  to  the  absurd  neologism  which  has 
been  current  on  title-pages  for  the  last  few  years,  first  employed  by  a  distinguished 
noble  author  (of  much  higher  authority  in  legal  than  in  linguistic  learning),  and 
forthwith  adopted,  of  course,  by  the  numerous  class  to  whom  anything  and  every- 
thing new  recommends  itself  as  certain  to  be  right  —  the  same  who  some  years 
before  at  once  and  unanimously  took  to  writing  Dovor  instead  of  Dover  on  no  better 
ground  than  that  the  former  spelling  had  appeared  painted  on  some  stage-coach  — 
the  neologism  which  turns  our  perfectly  correct  old  Handbook  (the  Handbuch  of  the 
Germans)  into  Handy  Book  !  Are  we  to  have  also  handy  ball,  and  handy  barrow,  and 
handy  basket,  and  handy  breadth,  and  handy  maiden  ?  It  is  the  same  as  if  we  were  to 
call  a  sunbf-ani  a  sunny  beam,  or  a  fire-shovel  a  fi>-Ty  shovel,  or  a  hairbrush  a  hairy  brushy 
jr  a  head-dress  a  heady  dress. 

VOL.    I.  37 


290  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

A  fact  elsewhere  noticed  by  Mr.  Guest,  we  may  just  remark, 
althouiih  not  adduced  by  him  for  that  purpose,  meets  Mr.  Price's 
objection  about  the  unhkelihood  or  impossibihty  of  many  Anglo- 
Saxon  monosyllables  having  after  the  Conquest  been  elongated 
into  dissyllables,  and  having  then  in  some  succeeding  century 
reverted  to  their  original  monosyllabic  condition.  If  it  were 
necessar}-  to  make  such  an  assumption  as  this  in  order  to  vindi- 
cate Tyrwhitt's  theory  of  Chaucer's  versification,  the  thing  sup- 
posed is  no  more  than  what  has  actually  happened.  As  Mr.  Guest 
has  observed  (vol.  i.  p.  40),  "  The  dissyllables  containing  y  and  xo 
seem  to  have  been  once  so  numerous  in  our  language,  that  many 
words,  both  English  and  foreign,  were  adapted  to  their  pronuncia- 
tion, and  tluis  gained  a  syllable  :  scwr  A.  S.  became  shower,  and 
jlenr  Fr.  became  flower.  Change  of  pronunciation  has  again  re- 
duced them  to  their  original  dimensions." 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  may  say  that  substantially  Tp'whitt's 
theory  remains  unshaken  ;  and  we  shall,  in  our  extracts,  assume 
that  the  mode  proposed  by  him  of  reading  the  verse  of  Chaucer 
and  his  contemporaries  is  the  true  one.  The  reader,  to  whom  it 
may  be  new,  will  find,  after  a  very  little  practice,  that  the  ear 
soon  gets  accustomed  to  the  peculiarities  of  pronunciation  re- 
quired ;  and  the  slight  air  of  archaism  Avhich  they  impart  rather 
adds  to  the  effect  of  the  poetry,  so  that  we  come  to  prefer  the 
retention  of  these  obsolete  forms  to  any  substitution,  however  deli- 
cately made,  that  Avould  aim  at  modernizing  it  or  making  it  more 
intelligible.  We  shall  not,  however,  in  our  transcripts,  attempt  to 
indicate  the  pronunciation  by  any  accentual  or  other  marks  ;  being 
of  opinion  with  Tyrwhitt  that  "  a  reader  who  cannot  perform  such 
operations  for  himself  had  better  not  trouble  his  head  about  the 
versification  of  Chaucer." 

"  The  notion,  probably,  which  most  people  have  of  Chaucer," 
to  borrow  a  few  sentences  of  what  \v;e  have  written  elsewhere,  "  is 
merely  that  he  was  a  remarkably  good  poet  for  his  day ;  but  that, 
both  from  his  lano-uage  havincr  become  obsolete,  and  from  the  ad- 
vancement  which  we  have  since  made  in  poetical  tastfi  and  skill, 
he  may  now  be  considered  as  fairly  dead  and  buried  in  a  literary, 
as  well  as  in  a  literal,  sense.  This,  we  siispect,  is  the  common 
belief  even  of  educated  persons  and  of  scholars  who  have  not  ac- 
tually made   accjuaintance  with   Chaucer,  but  know  him  only  by 


GEOFFREY    CHAUCER  291 

name  or  by  sight ;  —  by  that  antique-sounding  dissyllable  that 
seems  to  beloncr  to  another  nation  and  tongue,  as  well  as  to 
another  age  ;  and  by  that  strange  costume  of  diction,  grammar, 
and  spelling,  in  which  his  tliouglits  are  clothed,  fluttering  about 
them,  as  it  appears  to  do,  like  the  rags  upon  a  scarecrow. 

"Now,  instead  of  tin's,  the  poetry  of  Chaucer  is  really,  in  all 
essential  respects,  about  the  greenest  and  freshest  in  our  language. 
We  have  some  higher  poetry  than  Chaucer's  —  poetry  that  has 
more  of  the  character  of  a  revelation,  or  a  voice  fi*om  another 
world :  we  have  none  in  which  there  is  either  a  more  aboiuiding 
or  a  more  bounding  spirit  of  life,  a  truer  or  fuller  natural  inspira- 
tion. He  may  be  said  to  verify,  in  another  sense,  the  remark  of 
Bacon,  that  what  we  commonly  call  antiquity  was  really  the  youth 
of  the  world  :  his  poetry  seems  to  breathe  of  a  time  when  human- 
ity was  younger  and  more  joyous-hearted  tlian  it  now  is.  Un- 
doubtedly he  had  an  advantage  as  to  this  matter,  in  having  been 
the  first  great  poet  of  his  country.  Occupying  this  position,  he 
stands  in  some  deo-ree  between  each  of  his  successors  and  nature. 
The  sire  of  a  nation's  minstrelsy  is  of  necessity,  though  it  may  be 
unconsciously,  regarded  by  all  who  come  after  him  as  almost  a 
portion  of  nature,  —  as  one  Avhose  utterances  are  not  so  much  the 
echo  of  hers  as  in  very  deed  her  own  living  voice,  —  carrying  in 
them  a  spirit  as  original  and  divine  as  the  music  of  her  running 
brooks,  or  of  her  breezes  among  the  leaves.  And  there  is  not 
wanting  something  of  reason  in  this  idolatry.  It  is  he  alone 
who  has  conversed  with  nature  directly,  and  without  an  inter- 
preter, —  who  has  looked  upon  the  glory  of  her  countenance 
unveiled,  and  received  upon  his  heart  the  perfect  image  of  what 
she  is.  Succeeding  poets,  by  reason  of  his  intervention,  and  that 
imitation  of  him  into  which,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  they  are 
of  necessity  drawn,  see  her  only,  as  it  were,  wrapt  in  hazy  and 
metamorphosing  adornments,  which  human  hands  have  woven  for 
her,  and  are  prevented  from  perfectly  discerning  the  outline  and 
the  movements  of  her  form  by  that  encumbering  investiture. 
They  are  the  fallen  race,  who  have  been  banished  from  the  imme- 
diate presence  of  the  divinity,  and  have  been  left  only  to  conjec- 
ture from  afar  off  the  brightness  of  that  majesty  which  sits  throned 
to  them  behind  impenetrable  clouds:  he  is  the  First  Man,  who  has 
seen  God  walking  in  the  garden,  and  communed  with  him  face  to 
face. 


292  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

"  But  Chaucer  is  the  Homei'  of  his  country,  not  only  as  havino 
been  the  earhest  of  her  poets  (deserving  to  be  so  called),  but  also 
as  being  still  one  of  her  greatest.  The  names  of  Spenser,  of 
Shakspeare,  and  of  Milton  are  the  only  other  names  that  can  be 
])laced  on  the  same  line  with  his. 

"  His  poetry  exhibits,  in  as  remarkable  a  degree  perhaps  as  any 
other  in  any  language,  an  intermixture  and  combination  of  Avhat 
are  usually  deemed  the  most  opposite  excellences.  Great  poet  as 
he  is,  we  might  almost  say  of  him  that  his  genius  has  as  much 
about  it  of  the  spirit  of  prose  as  of  poetry,  and  that,  if  he  had  not 
sung  so  admirably  as  he  has  done  of  flowery  meadows,  and  sum- 
mer skies,  and  gorgeous  ceremonials,  and  high  or  tender  passions, 
and  the  other  themes  over  which  the  imao;ination  loves  best  to 
pour  her  vivifying  light,  he  would  have  won  to  himself  the  reno"mi 
of  a  Montaigne  or  a  Swift  by  the  originality  and  penetrating 
sagacitv  of  his  observations  on  ordinary  life,  his  insio;ht  into  mo- 
tives  and  character,  the  richness  and  peculiarity  of  his  humor,  the 
sharp  edge  of  his  satire,  and  the  propriety,  flexibility,  and  exquisite 
expressiveness  of  his  refined  yet  natural  diction.  Even  like  the 
varied  visible  creation  around  us,  his  poetry  too  has  its  earth,  its 
sea,  and  its  sky,  and  all  the  '  sweet  vicissitudes '  of  each.  Here 
you  have  the  clear-eyed  observer  of  man  as  he  is,  catching  '  the 
manners  living  as  they  rise,'  and  fixing  them  in  pictures  where 
not  their  minutest  lineament  is  or  ever  can  be  lost :  here  he  is  the 
inspired  dreamer,  by  Avhom  earth  and  all  its  realities  are  forgotten, 
as  his  spirit  soars  and  sings  in  the  finer  air  and  amid  the  diviner 
beauty  of  some  far-off  world  of  its  own.  Now  the  riotous  verse 
rijigs  loTid  Avith  the  turbulence  of  human  merriment  and  laughter, 
casting  from  it,  as  it  dashes  on  its  way,  flasli  after  flash  of  all  the 
forms  of  wit  and  comedy ;  now  it  is  the  tranquillizing  companion- 
ship of  the  sights  and  sounds  of  inanimate  nature  of  which  the 
poet's  heart  is  full,  —  the  springing  herbage,  and  the  dew-drops  on 
the  leaf,  and  the  rivulets  glad  beneath  the  morning  ray  and  dan- 
cing to  their  own  simple  music.  From  mere  narrative  and  playful 
humor  up  to  the  heights  of  imaginative  and  impassioned  song,  his 
genius  has  exercised  itself  in  all  styles  of  poetry,  and  won  imper- 
ishable laurels  in  all."  ^ 

It  has  been  commonly  believed  that  one  of  the  chief  sources 
from  which  Chaucer  drew  both  the  form  and  the  spirit  of  his 
1  Printing  Machine,  No.  37  (1835). 


GEOFFREY    CHAUCER.  293 

poetry  was  the  recent  and  contemporary  poetry  of  Italy  —  that 
eldest  portion  of  what  is  properly  called  the  literature  of  modern 
Eiu'ope,  the  produce  of  the  genius  of  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  and 
their  predecessor  and  master,  Dante.  But,  although  this  may 
have  been  the  case,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  was  so ;  and 
some  circumstances  seem  to  make  it  rather  improbable  that  Chau- 
cer was  a  reader  or  student  of  Italian.  Of  those  of  his  poems 
which  have  been  supposed  to  be  translations  from  the  Italian,  it 
must  be  considered  very  doubtful  if  any  one  was  really  derived  by 
him  from  that  language.  The  story  of  his  Palamon  and  Arcite, 
which,  as  the  Knight's  Tale,  begins  the  Canterbury  Tales,  but 
which  either  in  its  present  or  another  form  appears  to  have  been 
originally  composed  as  a  separate  work,  is  substantially  the  same 
with  that  of  Boccaccio's  heroic  poem  in  twelve  books  entitled  Le 
Teseide,  —  a  fact  which,  we  believe,  was  first  pointed  out  by  AVar- 
ton.  But  an  examination  of  the  two  poems  leads  rather  to  the 
conclusion  that  they  are  both  founded  upon  a  common  original 
than  that  the  one  was  taken  frcftn  the  other.  Boccaccio's  poem 
extends  to  about  12,000  octosyllabic,  Chaucer's  to  not  many  more 
than  2000  decasyllabic,  verses  ;  and  not  only  is  the  story  in  the 
one  much  less  detailed  than  in  the  other,  but  the  two  versions 
differ  in  some  of  the  main  circumstances.^  Chaucer,  moreover, 
nowhere  mentions  Boccaccio  as  his  original;  on  the  contrary,  as 
Warton  has  himself  noticed,  he  professes  to  draw  his  materials,  not 
fi'om  the  works  of  any  contemporary,  but  from  "  olde  Stories,"  and 
"  olde  bookes  that  all  this  story  telleth  more  plain."  ^  Tyrwhitt, 
too,  while  holding,  as  well  as  Warton,  that  Chaucer's  original  was 
Boccaccio,  admits  that  the  latter  was  in  all  probability  not  the 
inventor  of  the  story.^  Boccaccio  himself,  in  a  letter  relating  to 
his  poem,  describes  the  story  as  very  ancient,  and  as  existing  in 
what  he  calls  Latmo  volgare,  by  which  he  may  mean  rather  the 
Pro^xngal  than  the  Italian.^     In  fact,  as  both  Warton  and  Tyr- 

1  See  this  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Nott  (wlio  nevertheless  assumes  the  one  poem  to  be 
a  translation  tVom  the  otlier),  in  a  note  to  his  Dissertation  on  the  State  of  English 
Poetry  before  the  Sixteenth  Century,  p.  celxxiv. 

2  Warton's  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry,  ii.  179. 

^  Introductory  Discourse  to  Canterbury  Tales,  Note  (13). 

*  The  letter  is  addressed  to  his  mistress  (La  Fiametta),  Mary  of  Aragon,  a  natural 
daughter  of  Robert  king  of  Naples.  "  Trovata,"  he  says,  "  una  antichissima  storia, 
ed  al  pill  delle  genti  non  manifesta,  in  Latino  volgare,"  &c.     The  expression  herf 


294  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

\A-hitt  hav^e  shown,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  it  had  previously 
been  one  of  the  themes  of  romantic  poetiy  in  various  languages. 
The  passages  pointed  out  by  Tyrwhitt  in  his  notes  to  Chaucer's 
poem,  as  translated  or  imitated  from  tliat  of  Boccaccio,  are  few  and 
insignificant,  and  the  resemblances  they  present  would  be  suffi- 
ciently accounted  for  on  the  supposition  of  both  writers  having 
drawn  from  a  common  source.  Nearly  the  same  observations 
apply  to  the  supposed  obligations  of  Chaucer  in  his  Troilus  and 
Creseide  to  another  poetical  work  of  Boccaccio's,  his  Filostrato. 
The  discovery  of  these  was  first  announced  by  Tyrwhitt  in  his 
Essay  prefixed  to  the  Canterbury  Tales.  But  Chaucer  himself 
tells  us  (ii.  14)  that  he  translates  his  poem  "  out  of  Latin  "  ;  and 
in  other  passages  (i.  394,  and  v.  1653)  he  expressly  declares  his 
"auctor,"  or  author,  to  be  named  Lollius.  In  a  note  to  the  Par- 
son's Tale,  in  the  Canterbury  Tales,  Tyrwhitt  assumes  that  Lollius 
is  another  name  for  Boccaccio,  but  how  this  should  be  he  confesses 
himself  unable  to  explain.  In  his  Glossary  (a  later  publication) 
he  merely  describes  Lollius  as  "  a  Avriter  from  whom  Chaucer  pro- 
fesses to  have  translated  his  poem  of  Troilus  and  Creseide,"  add- 
ing, "I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  further  account  of  him." 
It  is  remarkable  that  he  should  omit  to  notice  that  Lollius  is  men- 
tioned by  Chaucer  in  another  poem,  his  House  of  Fame  (iii.  378), 
as  one  of  the  writers  of  the  Trojan  story,  along  with  Homer, 
Dares  Phrygius,  Livy  (whom  he  calls  Titus),  Guido  of  Colonna, 
and  "English  Galfrid,"  that  is,  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth.  The 
only  writer  of  the  name  of  Lollius  of  whom  anything  is  now 
known  appears  to  be  Lollius  Urbicus,  who  is  stated  to  have  lived 
in  the  third  century,  and  to  have  composed  a  history  of  his  own 
time,  which,  however,  no  longer  exists.^     But  our  ignorance  of 

lias  a  curious  resemblance  to  the  words  used  by  Chaucer  in  enumerating  his  own 
works  in  the  Legende  of  Good  Women,  v.  420,  — 

"  He  made  the  boke  that  hight  the  House  of  Fame,  &c. 
And  all  the  love  of  Palainon  and  Arcite 
Of  Thubes,  thvnyh  the  sloi-y  is  kiiowen  lite.''' 

Tyrwhitt's  interpretation  of  tliese  last  words  is,  tliat  they  seem  to  imply  that  tlie 
poem  to  which  they  allude,  the  Palamon  and  Arcite  (as  first  composed),  had  not 
made  itself  very  popular.  Both  he  and  Warton  understand  the  Latino  volgare  as 
meaning  the  Italian  language  in  this  passage  of  the  letter  to  La  Fiametta,  as  well 
as  in  a  stanza  which  he  quotes  from  the  Teseide  in  Discourse,  Note  (9). 

1  See  Warton,  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry,  ii.  220 ;  and  Vossius,  de  Historicig  Latinis,  ed. 
Ibul,  p.  176. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  295 

who  Chaucer's  Lollius  was  does  not  entitle  us  to  assume  that  it  is 
Boccaccio  whom  he  designates  by  that  name.  Besides,  the  two 
poems  have  only  that  general  resemblance  which  would  result 
from  theh'  subject  being  the  same,  and  their  having  been  founded 
upon  a  common  original.  Tyrwhitt  (note  to  Parson's  Tale),  while 
he  insists  that  the  fact  of  the  one  beino;  borrowed  from  the  other 
"  is  evident,  not  only  from  the  fable  and  characters,  which  are  the 
same  in  both  poems,  but  also  from  a  number  of  passages  in  the 
English  which  are  literally  translated  from  the  Italian,"  admits 
that  "  at  the  same  time  there  are  several  long  passages,  and  even 
episodes,  in  the  Troilus  of  which  there  are  no  traces  in  the  Filos- 
trato ;  "  and  Warton  makes  the  same  statement  almost  in  the 
same  words. ^  Tyrwhitt  acknowledges  elsewhere,  too,  that  the 
form  of  Chaucer's  stanza  in  the  Troilus  does  not  appear  ever  to 
have  been  used  by  Boccaccio,  nor  does  he  profess  to  have  been 
able  to  find  such  a  stanza  in  any  early  Italian  poetry .^  The  only 
other  composition  of  Chaucer's  for  which  he  can  be  imagined  to 
have  had  an  Italian  original  is  his  Clerk's  Tale  in  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  the  matchless  story  of  Griselda.  This  is  one  of  the  stories 
of  the  Decameron  ;  but  it  was  not  from  Boccaccio's  Italian  that 
Chaucer  took  it,  but  from  Petrarch's  Latin,  as  he  must  be  under- 
stood to  intimate  in  the  Prologue,  where  he  says,  or  makes  the 
narrator  say, — 

"  I  well  you  tell  a  tale  which  that  I 
Learned  at  Padowe  of  a  worthy  clerk, 
As  proved  by  his  wordes  and  his  werk: 
He  is  now  dead  and  nailed  in  his  chest ; 
I  pray  to  God  so  yeve  his  soule  rest. 
Francis  Petrarch,  the  laureat  poet, 
Highte  this  clerk,  whose  rhethoricke  sweet 
Enlumined  all  Itaille  of  poetrie." 

Petrarch's  Latin  translation  of  Boccaccio's  tale  is,  as  Tyrwhitt 
states,  printed  in  all  the  editions  of  his  works,  under  the  title  of  Be 
Obedientia  et  Fide  Uxoria  3Iythologia  (a  Myth  on  Wifely  Obedience 
iind  Faithfulness).^  But,  indeed,  Chaucer  may  not  have  even  had 
Petrarch's   translation  before  him ;    for  Petrarch,  in  his  letter  to 

1  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry,  il.  p.  221,  note.  ~  Essay,  §  9. 

^  It  is  strange  that  Warton,  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry,  ii.  250,  should  say  that  this  trans- 
lation was  never  printed. 


296  ENGLISH    LITERATURE  AND   LANGUAGE. 

Boccaccio,  in  which  he  states  that  he  had  translated  it  from  the 
Decameron,  only  recently  come  into  his  hands,  informs  his  friend 
also  that  the  story  had  been  known  to  him  many  years  before. 
He  may  therefore  have  communicated  it  orally  to  Chaucer,  through 
the  medium  of  what  was  probably  their  common  medium  of  com- 
munication, the  Latin  tongue,  if  they  ever  met,  at  Padua  or  else- 
Avhere,  as  it  is  asserted  they  did.  All  that  we  are  concerned  with 
at  present,  is  the  fact  that  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  taken 
by  Chaucer  from  the  Decameron  :  he  makes  no  reference  to  Boc- 
caccio as  his  authority,  and,  while  it  is  the  only  one  of  the  Canter- 
bury Tales  Avhich  could  otherwise  have  been  suspected  with  any 
probability  to  have  been  derived  from  that  work,  it  is  at  the  same 
time  one  an  acquaintance  with  which  we  know  he  had  at  least  the 
means  of  acquiring  through  another  language  than  the  Italian. 
To  these  considerations  may  be  added  a  remark  made  by  Sir  Harris 
Nicolas  :  —  "  That  Chaucer  was  not  acquainted  with  Italian,"  says 
that  writer,  "  may  be  inferred  from  his  not  having  introduced  any 
Italian  quotation  into  his  works,  redundant  as  they  are  with  Latin 
and  French  words  and  phrases."  To  which  he  subjoins  in  a  note : 
"  Though  Chaucer's  writings  have  not  been  examined  for  the  pur- 
pose, the  remark  in  the  text  is  not  made  altogether  from  recollec- 
tion ;  for  at  the  end  of  Speght's  edition  of  Chaucer's  works  trans- 
lations are  given  of  the  Latin  and  French  words  in  the  poems,  but 
not  a  single  Italian  word  is  mentioned."  ^ 

'rt  may  be  questioned,  then,  if  much  more  than  the  fame  of 
Italian  song  had  reached  the  ear  of  Chaucer ;   but,  at  all  events, 

1  Life  of  Chaucer,  p.  25.  Sir  Harris  had  said  before  :  — "  Though  Ciiauccr  un- 
doubtedly knew  Latin  and  French,  it  is  by  no  means  certain,  notwithstanding  his 
supposed  obhgations  to  the  Decameron,  tiiat  he  was  as  well  acquainted  with  Italian. 
There  may  have  been  a  conunon  Latin  original  of  the  main  incidents  of  many  if 
not  of  ail  the  Tales  for  which  Chaucer  is  supposed  to  have  been  wholly  indebted  to 
Boccaccio,  and  from  which  original  Boccaccio  himself  may  have  taken  them." 
Beside  the  Clerk's  Tale,  which  has  been  noticed  above,  the  only  stories  in  the  Can- 
terbury Tales  which  are  found  in  the  Decameron  are  the  Reeve's  Tale,  the  Ship- 
man's  Tale,  and  the  Franklin's  Tale  ;  but  both  Tyrwhitt  and  Warton,  while  main- 
taining Chaucer's  obligations  in  other  respects  to  the  Italian  writers,  admit  that  the 
two  former  are  much  more  probably  derived  from  French  Fabliaux  (the  particular 
fabliau,  indeed,  on  which  the  Reeve's  Tale  appears  to  be  founded  has  been  published 
by  Le  Grand)  ;  and  the  Franklin's  Tale  is  expressly  stated  by  Chaucer  himself  to 
be  a  Breton  lay.  He  nowhere  mentions  Boccaccio  or  his  Decameron,  or  any  other 
Italian  authority.  Of  the  Pardoner's  Tale,  "the  mere  outline,"  as  Tyrwhitt  states, 
18  to  be  found  in  the  Cento  Novelle  Antichp ;  but  ttie  greater  part  of  that  collection  is 
borrowed  from  the  Contes  and  Fabliaux  of  tlie  French. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  297 

tlie  foreign  poetry  with  which  he  was  most  famihar  was  certainly 
that  of  France.  This,  indeed,  was  probably  still  accounted  every- 
where the  classic  poetical  literature  of  the  modern  world  ;  the 
younger  poetry  of  Italy,  which  was  itself  a  derivation  from  that 
common  fountain-head,  had  not  yet,  Avith  all  its  real  superiority, 
either  supplanted  the  old  lays  and  romances  of  the  trouveres  and 
troubadours,  or  even  taken  its  place  by  their  side.  The  earliest 
English,  as  well  as  the  earliest  Italian,  poetiy  was  for  the  most  part 
a  translation  or  imitation  of  that  of  France.  Of  the  poetry  written 
in  the  French  language,  indeed,  in  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thir- 
teenth centuries,  the  larger  portion,  as  we  have  seen,  was  produced 
in  England,  for  English  readers,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  by 
natives  of  this  country.  French  poetry  was  not,  therefore,  during 
this  era  regarded  among  us  as  a  foreign  literature  at  all ;  and  even 
at  a  later  date  it  must  have  been  looked  back  upon  by  every  edu- 
cated Englishman  as  rather  a  part  of  that  of  his  own  land.  /'  For  a 
century,  or  perhaps  more,  before  Chaucer  arose,  the  greater  num- 
ber of  our  common  versifiers  had  been  busy  in  translating  the 
French  romances  and  other  poetry  into  English,  which  was'  now 
fast  becoming  the  ordinary  or  only  speech  even  of  the  educated 
classes  ;  but  this  work  had  for  the  most  part  been  done  with  little 
pains  or  skill,  and  with  no  higher  ambition  than  to  convey  the  mere 
sense  of  the  French  original  to  the  English  reader.  By  the  time 
when  Chaucer  began  to  write,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  French  language  appears  to  have  almost  gone  out  of 
use  as  a  common  medium  of  communication  ;  the  English,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  we  may  see  by  the  ])oetry  of  Langland  and  Minot  as 
compared  with  that  of  Robert  of  Gloucester,  had,  in  the  course  of 
the  preceding  hundred  years,  thrown  off  much  of  its  primitive 
rudeness,  and  acquii-ed  a  considerable  degree  of  regularity  and 
flexibility,  and  general  fitness  for  literary  composition.  In  these 
circumstances,  writing  in  French  in  England  was  over  for  any  good 
purpose :  Chaucer  himself  observes  in  the  prologue  to  his  prose 
treatise  entitled  the  Testament  of  Love  :  —  "  Certes  there  ben  some 
that  speak  their  poesy  matter  in  French,  of  which  speech  the 
Frenchmen  have  as  good  a  fantasy  as  we  have  in  hearing  of 
Frenchmen's  English."  And  again  :  —  "  Let,  then,  clerks  enditeu 
in  Latin,  for  they  have  the  property  of  science  and  the  knowinge 
ai  that  faculty  ;  and  let  Frenchmen  in  their  French  also  endite 
their  quaint  terms,  for  it  is  kindly  [natural]  to  their  mouths  ;  and 
iTOL.  I.  38 


298  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

let  us  show  our  fantasies  in  such  words  as  we  learneden  of  oui 
dames'  tongue."  The  two  languages,  in  short,  hke  the  two  na- 
tions, were  now  become  completely  separated,  and  in  some  sort 
hostile  :  as  the  Kings  of  England  were  no  longer  either  Dukes  of 
Normandy  or  Earls  of  Poitou,  and  recently  a  fierce  war  had  sprung 
up  still  more  effectually  to  divide  the  one  country  from  the  other, 
and  to  break  up  all  intercourse  between  them,  so  the  French  tongue 
was  fast  growing  to  be  almost  as  strange  and  distinctly  foreign 
among  us  as  the  English  had  always  been  in  France.  Chaucer's 
original  purpose  and  aim  may  be  supposed  to  have  been  that  of  the 
generality  of  his  immediate  predecessors,  to  put  his  countrymen  in 
possession  of  some  of  the  best  productions  of  the  French  poets,  so 
far  as  that  could  be  done  by  translation  ;  and  with  his  genius  and 
accomplishments,  and  the  greater  j^ains  he  was  willing  to  take  with 
it,  we  may  conjecture  that  he  hoped  to  execute  his  task  in  a  man- 
ner very  superior  to  that  in  which  such  work  had  hitherto  been 
performed.  AVith  these  views  he  undertook  what  was  probably  his 
earliest  composition  of  any  length,  his  translation  of  the  Roman  dc 
la  JRose,  begun  by  Guillaume  de  Lorris,  who  died  about  1260,  and 
continued  and  finished  by  Jean  de  Meun,  whose  date  is  about  half  a 
century  later.  "  This  poem,"  says  Warton,  "  is  esteemed  by  the 
French  the  most  vakiable  piece  of  their  old  poetry.  It  is  far  be- 
yond the  rude  efforts  of  all  their  preceding  romancers  ;  and  they 
have  nothing  equal  to  it  })efore  the  reign  of  Francis  the  First,  who 
died  in  the  year  1547.  Jkit  there  is  a  considerable  difference  in 
the  merit  of  the  two  authors.  William  of  Lorris,  who  wrote  not 
one  quarter  of  the  poem,  is  remai'kable  for  his  elegance  and  luxu- 
riance of  description,  and  is  a  beautiful  painter  of  allegorical  per- 
sonages. John  of  Meun  is  a  writer  of  another  cast.  He  possesses 
but  little  of  his  pi'edecessor's  inventive  and  poetical  vein  ;  and  in 
that  respect  he  was  not  ])r()})erly  qualified  to  finish  a  poem  bopan 
by  William  of  Lorris.  But  he  has  strong  satire  and  great  liveli- 
ness. He  was  one  of  the  wits  of  the  court  of  Charles  le  Uel. 
The  difficulties  and  dangers  of  a  lover  in  pursuing  and  obtaming 
the  object  of  his  desires  are  the  literal  argiunent  of  this  poem. 
This  design  is  couched  under  the  argument  of  a  rose,  which  our 
lover  after  frequent  obstacles  gathers  in  a  delicious  garden.  He 
traverses  vast  ditches,  scales  lofty  walls,  and  forces  the  gi-terj  of 
adamantine  and  almost  impregnable  castles.  These  enchant' d  fjr- 
tresses  are  all  inhabited  by  various  divinities  ;  some  of  whic    if  jp,ist. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  299 

and  some  oppose,  the  lover's  progress."  ^  The  enth-e  poem  consists 
of  no  fewer  than  22,734  verses,  of  which  only  4149  are  the  com- 
position of  William  of  Lorris.  All  this  portion  has  been  translated 
bv  Chaucer,  and  also  about  half  of  the  18,588  lines  written  hj  De 
Meun :  his  version  comprehends  13,105  lines  of  the  French  poem. 
These,  however,  he  has  managed  to  comprehend  in  7701  (Wartun 
says  7699)  English  vei'ses  :  this  is  effected  by  a  great  compression 
and  curtailment  of  De  Menu's  part ;  for,  while  the  4149  French 
verses  of  De  Lorris  are  fully  and  faithfully  rendered  in  4432  Eng- 
lish verses,  the  8956  that  follow  by  De  Meun  are  reduced  in  the 
translation  to  3269.  Warton,  who  exhibits  ample  specimens  botii 
of  the  translation  and  of  the  original,  considers  that  Chaucer  has 
throughout  at  least  equalled  De  Lorris,  and  decidedly  sm'passed  and 
improved  De  Meun.  We  can  afford  space  for  only  one  short  ex- 
tract :  the  poet  represents  himself  as  having  seen  all  that  he  relates 
in  a  dream,  the  account  of  which  he  thus  begins :  — 

That  it  was  May  me  thoughten  llio,^ 
It  is  five  year  or  more  ago, 
That  it  was  May  thus  dreamed  me 
In  time  of  love  and  jollity, 
Tiiat  all  thing  ginneth  waxen  gay ; 
For  there  is  neither  busk  nor  hay^ 
In  May  that  it  n'ill  sln-owded  been,* 
And  it  with  newe  leaves  wrene:^ 
These  woodes  eke  recoveren  green 
That  dry  in  winter  been  to  seen, 
And  the  earth  wexetli  proud  withal 
For  sote  ®  dews  that  on  it  flill, 
And  the  pover''  estate  forget 
In  which  that  winter  had  it  set ; 
And  then  becoraeth  the  ground  so  proud 
That  it  vvoU  have  a  newe  slirowd, 
And  make  so  quaint  liis  robe  and  fair 
That  it  had  hews  an  hundred  pair, 
Of  grass  and  floures  Ind  and  Pers,' 
And  many  hewes  full  diverse  ; 
That  is  the  robe  I  mean,  ywis, 

1  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry,  ii.  209.  2  Then. 

3  Bush  nor  hedgerow.  *  Will  not  be  shrouded  or  covered. 

^  Itself  hide,  or  cover.  ^  Sweet. 

Poor.  8  Indian  and  Persian. 


SOO  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 


Throu<j;h  which  the  ground  to  praisen  is.^ 
[The  birdes,  that  han  left  their  .song 

While  they  had  suffered  cold  full  strong 

In  weathers  gril,-  and  derk  to  sight, 

Been  in  May  for  the  sunne  bright 

So  glad,  that  they  shew  in  singing 
I  That  in  their  heart  is  such  liking, 
[That  they  mote  singen  and  been  light : 

Then  doth  the  nightingale  her  might 

To  maken  noise  and  singen  blithe ; 

Then  is  ])lissful  many  a  sithe  ^ 

The  chalaundre  *  and  the  popingay  ; 

Then  younge  folk  intenden  ^  aye 

For  to  been  gay  and  amorous, 

The  time  is  then  so  savourous. 
[Hard  is  his  heart  that  loveth  nought 

In  INIay,  when  all  this  mirth  is  wrought, 

When  he  may  on  these  branches  hear 

The  smale  birdes  singen  clear 

Their  blissful  sw^ete  song  pitous. 

And  in  this  season  delitous, 

When  love  affirmeth  ®  alle  thing, 

Methought  one  night,  in  my  sleeping 

Right  in  my  bed  full  readily. 

That  it  was  by  the  morrow  early ; 

And  up  I  rose  and  gan  me  clothe  ; 

Anon  I  wish ''  mine  hondes  both  ; 

A  silver  needle  forth  I  drew 

Out  of  a  guiler  ^  quaint  enow. 

And  gan  this  needle  thread  anon  ; 

For  out  of  town  me  list  to  gone. 

The  soun  of  briddes  ^  for  to  hear 

That  on  the  buskes  ^°  singen  clear. 

In  the  sweet  season  that  leif  is.** 

With  a  thread  basting  ^'^  my  sleeves. 

Alone  I  went  in  my  pl;i)ing, 

The  smale  fowles'  song  hearkening, 

That  plained  them  full  many  a  pair 
'  Is  to  be  praised  ?  if  this  be  the  true  reading.     The  French  is,   "  Parquoy  la 
terre  niieulx  se  prise." 

2  Grim,  dreary.  *  Time.  *  Goldfinch. 

^  Address  themselves.  ®  Strcngtheneth.  "^  "Washed. 

*  Needle-case.  ^  Birds.  i°  Bushes 

^'  Pleasing.  i-  Stitching. 


'  GEOFFREY    CHAUCER.  801 

^  To  sing  on  boughes  blossomed  fair ; 

Jollify  and  gay,  full  of  gladness, 
Toward  a  river  gan  me  dress  ^ 
Which  that  I  heard  ren  ^  faste  by ; 
For  fairer  play  en  none  saw  I 
Than  playen  me  by  that  rivere  ; 
For  from  an  hill  that  stode  *  there  near 
Come  down  the  stream  full  stiff  and  bold ; 
Clear  was  the  water,  and  as  cold 
As  any  well  is,  soth  to  sain,^ 
And  some  deal  lass  ®  it  was  than  Seine  ; 
But  it  was  straighter,  wele  away  ;  "^ 
And  never  saw  I  ere  that  day 
The  water  that  so  wele  liked  *  me  , 
And  wonder  glad  was  I  to  see 
That  lusty  ®  place  and  that  rivere. 
With  that  water  that  ran  so  clear 
My  face  I  wish  ;  tho  saw  I  Avele 
The  bottom  ypaved  every  deal  ^° 
With  gravel,  full  of  stones  sheen  ; 
The  meadows,  softe,  sote,  and  green, 
Beet  ^^  light  upon  the  water  side  ; 
Full  clear  was  then  the  morrow  tide,^^ 
And  full  attemper  ^^  out  of  drede  :  ^* 
Tho  gan  I  walken  through  the  mead. 
Downward  ever  in  my  playing 
Nio;h  to  the  river's  side  coasting. 

No  verse  so  flowing  and  harmonious  as  tliis,  no  diction  at  once; 
BO  clear,  correct,  and  expressive,  had,  it  is  probable,  adorned  and 
brought  out  the  capabilities  of  his  native  tongue  when  Chaucer 
began  to  write.  Several  of  his  subseqtient  poems  are  also  in  whole 
or  in  part  translations ;  the  Troilus  and  Creseide,  the  Legende  of 
Good  Women  (much  of  which  is  borrowed  from  Ovid's  Epistles), 
and  others.  But  we  must  pass  over  these,  and  will  take  oiu'  next 
extract  from  his  House  of  Fame,  no  foreign  original  of  which  has 
been  discovered,  although  Warton  is  inclined  to  think  that  it  may- 
have  been  translated  or  paraphrased  from  the  Proven9al.    Chaucer, 

1  Jolly.  2  Direct.  ^  Run. 

''  Stood.  ^  Sooth  to  say.  ^  Somewhat  less. 

"  Well-away,  well  a-day,  alas.  ^  So  well  pleased. 

^  Pleasant.  ^''  Everywhere.  ^^  I'erhaps  a  misprint  for  been. 

^■^  The  morning.  i'^  Temperate.  '■•  Without  doubt. 


302  EXr.LTSII    LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE 

however,  seems  to  ap])ear  in  it  in  his  own  person ;  at  least  the 
poet  or  <h'eamer  is  in  the  coui'se  of  it  more  tlian  once  addressed  by 
the  name  of  Geoffrey.  And  in  the  folloAving  passage  he  seems  to 
describe  liis  own  occupation  and  habits  of  hfe.  It  is  addressed  to 
him  by  the  golden  but  liA'ing  Eagle,  who  has  carried  him  np  into 
the  air  in  his  talons,  and  by  whom  the  marvellous  sights  he  relates 
are  shown  and  explained  to  him  :  — 

Fii'st,  I,  tliat  in  my  feet  have  thee, 

Of  wliona  thou  hast  great  fear  and  wonder, 

Am  dwelluig  with  the  God  of  Thunder, 

Whii'h  men  ycallen  Jupiter, 

That  dotli  me  tlyen  full  oft  fer  ^ 

To  do  all  his  conimandement ; 

And  for  this  cause  he  hath  me  sent 

To  thee  ;  harken  now  by  thy  trouth  ; 

Certain  he  hatli  of  thee  great  routh,"'^ 

For  tliat  thou  hast  so  truely 

So  long  served  ententifly  ^ 

His  blinde  nephew  Cupido, 

And  the  fair  queen  Venus  also, 

Withouten  guerdon  ever  yet ; 

And  natheless  *  hast  set  thy  wit 

Althoughe  in  thy  head  full  lit  is 

To  make  bokes,  songs,  and  dittes. 

In  rhime  or  elles  in  cadence. 

As  thou  best  canst,  in  reverence 

Of  Love  and  of  his  servants  eke. 

That  have  his  service  sought  and  seek  ; 

And  painest  thee  to  praii^c  his  art, 

Although  tliou  haddest  never  part ; 

Wherefore,  so  Avisely  God  me  bless, 

Jovis  yhalt  *  it  great  humbless, 

And  virtue  eke,  tliat  tliou  wilt  make 

Anight "  full  oft  thine  liead  to  ache 

In  thy  study,  so  thou  ywritest, 

And  ever  more  of  Love  enditest, 

In  honour  of  him  and  praisings. 

And  in  iiis  folkes  furtherings, 

And  in  their  matter  all  devisest, 

And  hot  him  ne  his  folk  despisest, 

Although  tliou  may'st  go  in  the  dance 

1  Far.  -  Rutli,  pity.  ^  Attentively. 

*  Nevertheless.  ^  Jove  held.  ^  O'nijihts,  at  niuhf 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  iiO'6 

Of  them  that  him  list  not  avance: 

Wlierefore,  as  I  now  said,  j\nSy 

Jupiter  considreth  Avell  this, 

And  als,  beau  sire,-'  of  other  things, 

That  is,  that  thou  hast  no  tidings 

Of  Loves  folk  if  they  be  glade, 

Ne  of  nothing  else  that  God  made, 

And  not  only  fro  ■^  fer  countree 

That  no  tidinges  comen  to  thee, 

Not  of  thy  very  neighebores, 

That  dwellen  almost  at  thy  dores. 

Thou  hearest  neither  that  ne  this  ; 

For,  when  thy  labour  all  done  is, 

And  hast  made  all  thy  reckonings, 

Instead  of  rest  and  of  new  things, 

Thou  goest  home  to  thine  house  anon, 

And,  all  so  dumb  as  any  stone, 

Thou  sittest  at  another  book, 

Till  fully  dazed  is  thy  look. 

And  livest  thus  as  an  hermit. 

Although  thine  abstinence  is  lit ; 

And  therefore  Jo  vis,  through  his  grace, 

AVill  that  I  bear  thee  to  a  place 

Which  that  yhight  the  House  of  Farce,  &c. 

From  the  mention  of  his  reckonings  in  this  passage,  T3'rwhitt 
conjectures  that  Chaucer  probably  wrote  the  House  of  Fame  "vvhile 
he  held  the  office  of  Comptroller  of  the  Customs  of  Wools,  to 
which  he  was  appointed  in  1374.  It  may  be  regarded,  therefore, 
as  one  of  the  productions  of  the  second  or  middle  stage  of  his  poeti- 
cal life,  as  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  is  supposed  to  have  been  of 
the  first.  The  House  of  Fame  is  in  three  boohs,  comprising  in  all 
2190  lines,  and  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  poem  on  other  ac- 
counts, as  well  as  for  the  reference  which  Chaucer  seems  to  make 
in  it  to  himself,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  own  life.  Another 
evidence  which  it  carries  of  the  somewhat  advanced  years  of  the 
writer  is  the  various  learning  and  knowledge  with  which  it  is 
interspersed.  Here,  for  instance,  is  the  doctrine  of  gravitation  as 
explained  by  the  all-accomplished  Eagle  :  — 

Geffrey,  thou  knowest  full  well  this, 
•  That  every  kindly  ^  thing  that  is 
'  Fair  sir.  -  From.  ^  Namral. 


304  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND    LANGUAGE. 

Yliath  a  kindly  stead,  there  ^  he 

May  best  lu  it  conserved  be  ; 

Unto  which  phice  every  thing, 

Thorough  his  kindly  inclining, 

Ymeveth  ^  for  to  comen  to 

When  that  it  is  away  therefro  ; 

As  thus,  lo,  thou  may'st  all  day  see, 

Take  any  thing  that  heavy  be, 

As  stone,  or  lead,  or  thing  of  weight, 

And  bear  it  ne'er  so  high  on  height, 

Let  go  thine  hand  it  falleth  down  ; 

Right  so,  say  I,  by  fire,  or  soun. 

Or  smoke,  or  other  thinges  light, 

Alway  they  seek  upward  on  height ; 

Light  things  up  and  heavy  down  charge 

While  everich  of  them  be  at  large  ; 

And  for  this  cause  thou  may'st  well  see 

That  every  river  to  the  sea 

Inclined  is  to  go  by  kind ; 

And,  by  these  skilles  as  I  find, 

Have  fishes  dwelling  in  flood  and  sea. 

And  trees  eke  on  the  earthe  be  : 

Thus  every  thing  by  his  reason 

Hath  his  own  proper  mansion. 

To  which  he  seeketh  to  repair 

There  as  it  shoulden  nat  appair.' 

Lo  this  sentence  is  knowen  couth 

Of  every  philosopher's  mouth, 

As  Aristotle  and  Dan  Platon 

And  other  clerkes  many  one. 

And,  to  conlirmen  my  reasoun. 

Thou  wottest  Avell  that  speech  is  soun. 

Or  elles  no  man  might  it  hear  ; 

Now  hearken  what  I  woll  <^hee  lear. 

And  then  the  learned  bird  jiroceeds  in  the  like  strain   to  deliver  a 
lecture  on  the  production  and  jn'opagation  of  sound  :  — 

Soun  is  nought  but  air  ybroken, 
And  every  speec'he  that  is  spoken, 
Whe'r  *  loud  or  privy,  foid  or  fair, 

1  Where  ^  Moveth. 

'  Wlicre  it  should  not  impair,  or  suffer  declension.  *  Whether. 


GEOFFREY   CHALCER.  305 

In  his  substance  ne  Is  but  air, 

For,  as  flame  is  but  lighted  smoke, 

Right  so  is  soun  but  air  ybroke. 

But  this  may  be  in  many  wise, 

Of  the  which  I  will  thee  devise,^ 

As  soun  Cometh  of  pipe  or  harp  ; 

For  when  a  pipe  is  blowen  sharp 

The  air  is  twist  with  violence 

And  rent :  lo,  this  is  my  sentence. 

Eke,  when  that  men  harp-stringes  smite, 

Wheder  that  it  be  moch  or  lite,^ 

Lo,  with  the  stroke  the  air  it  breaketh, 

And  right  so  breaketh  it  when  men  speaketh. 

Thus  wost  ^  thou  well  what  thing  is  speech: 

Now  hennesforth  I  will  thee  teach 

How  everich  speeche,  voice,  or  soun, 

Through  his  multiplicatioun. 

Though  it  were  piped  of  a  mouse, 

Mote  *  needes  come  to  Fame's  House. 

I  prove  it  thus,  taketh  heed  now, 

By  experience  ;  for,  if  that  thou 

Threw  ^  in  a  water  now  a  stone. 

Well  wost  thou  it  will  make  anon 

A  little  roundle  as  a  circle, 

Peraventure  as  broad  as  a  covircle  ;  • 
And  right  anon  thou  shalt  see  wele 

That  circle  cause  another  wheel, 

And  that  the  third,  and  so  forth,  brother, 

Every  circle  causing  other 

Much  broader  than  himselfen  was  ; 

And  thus,  from  roundle  to  compass, 

Each  abouten  other  going 

Ycauseth  of  others  stirring. 

And  multiplying  evermo, 

Till  that  it  be  so  far  ygo 

That  it  at  bothe  brinkes  be ; 

Altliough  thou  mayest  it  not  see 

Above,  yet  goeth  it  alway  under. 

Although  thou  think  it  a  great  wonder ; 

1  Instruct.  2  Much  or  little.  ^  Knowest.  *  Must. 

^  Probably  a  misprint,  or  mistranscription,  for  throw.  ^  Potlid- 

VOL.  I.  39 


306  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  LANGUAGE. 

And  whoso  saith  of  truth  I  vary, 

Bidde  him  preven  ^  the  contrary  ; 

And  right  thus  every  word,  ywis, 

That  loud  or  privy  yspoken  is 

Ymoveth  first  an  air  about, 

And  of  his  moving,  out  of  doubt, 

Another  air  anon  is  moved. 

As  I  have  of  the  water  proved 

That  every  circle  causeth  other. 

Right  so  of  air,  my  leive  brother, 

Everich  air  another  stirreth 

More  and  more,  and  speech  up  beareth, 

Or  voice,  or  noise,  or  word,  or  soun. 

Aye  through  multiplicatioun, 

Till  it  be  at  the  House  of  Fame,  &c. 

He  then  applies  this  fact  of  sound  tending  up  into  the  air,  till  it 
find  its  stead  or  home,  the  House  of  Fame,  to  the  confirmation  of 
what  he  had  before  dehvered  on  the  general  law  of  gravitation  or 
attraction.  In  another  place,  we  have  an  illustration  drawn  from 
a  novelty  which  we  might  have  thought  had  hardly  yet  become 
familiar  enough  for  the  purposes  of  poetry.  The  passage,  too,  is 
a  sample  of  the  wild,  almost  grotesque  imagination,  and  force  of 
expression,  for  which  the  poem  is  remarkable  :  — 

What  did  this  iEolus  ?  but  he 
Took  out  his  blacke  trompe  of  brass, 
That  fouler  than  the  devil  was, 
And  gan  this  trompe  for  to  blow 
As  all  the  world  should  overtlu-ow. 
Throughout  every  region 
YAvent  this  foule  trompes  soun. 
As  swift  as  pellet  out  of  gun 
When  fire  is  in  the  poioder  run  : 
And  such  a  smoke  gan  out  wend 
Out  of  the  foule  trompes  end. 
Black,  blue,  and  greenish,  swartish,  red, 
As  doeth  where  that  men  melt  lead, 
Lo  all  on  higli  from  the  tewel :  ^ 
And  thereto  one  thing  saw  I  well, 
That  aye  the  ferther  that  it  ran 
The  greater  wexen  it  began, 
*  Prove.  "  Funnel. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  307 

As  doth  the  river  from  a  well ; 
Aiid  it  stank  as  the  pit  of  hell. 

The  old  mechanical  artillery,  however,  is  alluded   to  in  another 
passage  as  if  also  still  in  use  :  — 

And  the  noise  which  that  I  heard, 
For  all  the  woi'ld  right  so  it  fered  ^ 
As  doth  the  routing  ^  of  the  stone 
That  fro  the  engine  is  letten  gone. 

All  through  the  poem  runs  the  spirit  of  the  strange  barbarous 
classical  scholarship  of  the  middle  ages.  The  ^neid  is  not  alto- 
gether unknown  to  the  author  ;  but  it  may  be  questioned  if  his 
actual  acquaintance  with  the  work  extended  much  beyond  the  two 
opening  lines,  which  are  pretty  literally  rendered  in  six  octosyl- 
labic verses  near  the  beginning  of  the  first  book.  An  abridgment, 
indeed,  of  the  entire  story  of  jEneas,  as  told  by  Virgil,  follows  ; 
but  that  might  have  been  got  at  second-hand.  The  same  mixture 
of  the  classic  and  the  Gothic  occurs  throughout  that  is  found  in 
all  the  poetry,  French  and  Italian  as  well  as  Enghsh,  of  this  era. 
For  instance  :  — 

There  heard  I  playing  on  an  harp, 
That  ysounded  both  well  and  sharp, 
Him  Orpheus  full  craftily  ; 
And  on  this  other  side  fast  by 
Ysat  the  harper  Orion, 
And  Gacides  Chirion, 
And  other  harpers  many  one, 
And  the  Briton  Glaskirion,  &c. 

Orion  here  is  probably  a  mistake  (not,  we  fear,  a  typographical 
one)  for  Arion.  Why  Chirion  (by  whom  Chiron  seems  to  be 
intended)  is  called  Gacides  we  do  not  know^  —  unless  the  epithet 
be  a  misprint  for  Eacides,  or  Gacides,  applied  to  the  Centaur  (by 
a  somewhat  violent  license)  as  the  instructor  of  Achilles.  In  a 
subsequent  passage  the  confusion  is  more  perplexing  :  — 

There  saw  I  then  Dan  Citherns, 
And  of  Athens  Dan  Proserus, 
And  Mercia,  that  lost  her  skin, 
Both  in  the  face,  body,  and  chin, 

1  Fared,  proceeded.  ^  Roaring. 


308  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

For  that  she  would  envyer,  lo  ! 
To  pipen  bett  ^  than  Apollo. 
There  saw  I  famous  old  and  young 
Pipers  of  all  the  Dutche  tongue, 
To  learnen  love  dances,  springs, 
Reyes,"^  and  the  strange  things. 

Here,  we  apprehend,  Dan  Citherns  is  none  other  than  Mount 
Cithaeron.  Dan  Proserus  is  possibly  the  unfortunate  Procris,  wlio 
was  daughter  of  the  Athenian  king  Erectheus.  Mercia,  "  that  lost 
her  skin,"  is  undoubtedly  the  famous  j)iper  Marsyas,  turned  into  a 
woman  by  a  metamorphosis  of  which  .there  is  no  record  in  Ovid. 

As  a  specimen  of  the  strong  painting  that  characterizes  this 
poem,  its  crowded  and  variegated  canvas,  and  the  dramatic  life 
that  moves  and  hurries  on  the  action,  we  will  give  a  portion  of  the 
poet's  account  of  his  last  adventure,  his  visit  to  what  we  may  call, 
with  Warton,  the  House  or  Labyrinth  of  Rumor,  which  went  round 
and  round  continually  as  swift  as  thought,  making  such  a  noise 
as  might  have  been  heard  from  the  north  of  France  to  Rome.  It 
was  made  of  twigs,  and  was  all  over  holes  and  chinks  —  or,  as  the 
poem  says, 

And  eke  this  house  hath  of  entrees 

As  many  as  leaves  been  on  trees 

In  summer  when  that  they  been  green ; 

And  on  the  roof  yet  may  men  seen 

A  thousand  holes  and  well  mo, 

To  letten  the  sound  out  ygo  ; 

And  by  day  in  every  tide 

Been  all  the  dores  open  wide. 

And  by  night  each  one  is  unshet ; 

Ne  porter  is  there  none  to  let  * 

No  manner  tidings  in  to  pace  ; 

Ne  never  rest  is  in  that  place, 

That  it  is  filled  full  of  tidings 

Either  loud  or  of  whi.s[)ering9. 

And  ever  all  tlie  House's  angles 

Is  full  of  rowTiings  *  and  of  jangles,' 

Of  werres,®  of  peace,  of  marriages, 

Of  rests,  of  labour,  of  viages,  «S;c. 

^  Better.  -  A  kind  of  Dutch  dance.  '  Hinder. 

*  Wliisperings.  ^  Babbies.  *  Wars. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  309 

The  House,  which  was  shaped  like  a  cage,  and  sixty  miles  long, 
stood  in  a  valley ;  and,  after  he  has  gazed  upon  it  with  astonishment 
for  a  short  time,  the  poet  eagerly  begs  his  guide,  the  Eagle,  to  con- 
vey him  to  it,  and  show  him  what  it  contains.  The  answ^er  of  the 
Eagle  seems  to  refer  to  some  actual  circumstance  or  passage  of 
Chaucer's  history :  — 

But  certain  one  thing  I  thee  tell, 
That,  but  ^  I  bringen  thee  therein, 
Ne  shall  thou  never  con  the  gin  ^ 
To  come  into  it,  out  of  doubt, 
So  fast  it  whirleth,  lo,  about. 
But,  sith  that  Jovis  of  his  grace, 
As  I  have  said,  will  thee  solace 
Finally  with  these  ilke  ^  things, 
These  uncouth  ^  sightes  and  tidings, 
To  pass  away  thine  heaviness. 
Such  routh  hath  he  of  thy  distress 
That  thou  suffredest  debonaii-ly 
And  woste  ^  thy  selven  utterly,    • 
Wholly  desperate  of  all  bliss, 
Sith  that  fortune  hath  made  amiss  ^ 
The  sote ''  of  all  thine  h  carte's  rest 
Languish,  and  eke  in  point  to  brest ;  * 
But  he,  through  his  mighty  melite,^ 
WiU  do  thee  ease,  all  be  it  lite.^° 

The  imperial  bird,  accordingly,  took  up  the  poet  again  in  its 
"  tone,"  or  claws  (toes)^  and,  conveying  him  into  the  whirling 
house  by  a  window,  set  him  dowai  on  the  floor.  Then,  he  pro- 
ceeds, 

Such  great  congregation 

Of  folk  as  I  saw  roam  about, 

Some  it  within  and  some  without, 

N'as  never  seen,  ne  shall  be  eft  ^^  ...  . 

And  every  wight  that  I  saw  there 

Rowned  everich  ^'"  in  other's  ear 

A  newe  tiding  privily, 

Or  else  he  told  it  openly, 

^  Unless.  '^  Know  the  contrivance  (engine).  ^  Same. 

*  Strange  (unknown).  ^  Wastest.  ^  Unluckily. 

'  Sweet.  ^  On  tlie  point  of  bursting.  ^  Not  understood 

*"  Little.  ^^  Again.  i-  Whispered  every  one. 


310  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

Right  thus,  and  said,  Ne  wost  nat  thou 
That  is  betiddeii,^  lo  !  right  now  ? 
No,  certes,  quod  he  ;  tell  me  what ; 
And  then  he  told  him  this  and  that, 
And  swore  thereto  that  it  was  soth ; 
Thus  hath  he  said,  and  thus  he  doth, 
And  this  shall  be,  and  this  heard  I  say, 
That  shall  be  found,  that  dare  I  lay ; 
That  all  the  folk  that  is  on  live 
Ne  have  the  cunning  to  descrive 
Tho  thinges  that  I  hearden  there, 
What  aloud  and  what  in  the  ear. 
But  all  the  wonder  most  was  this, 
AVhen  one  had  heard  a  thing,  ywis, 
He  came  straight  to  another  wight. 
And  gan  him  tellen  anon  right 
The  same  tale  that  to  him  was  told 
Or  it  a  furlong  way  was  old. 
And  began  somewhat  for  to  ech  ^ 
Unto  this  tiding  m  his  speech 
More  than  ever  it  spoken  was, 
And  nat  so  soon  departed  n'as 
Tho  fro  him  that  he  ne  ymet  ^ 
With  the  third  man,  and,  ere  he  let  * 
Any  stonnd,^  he  ytold  him  alse  ;  ® 
Weren  the  tidings  sooth  or  false, 
Yet  wold  he  tell  it  natlieless. 
And  evermore  with  mo  increase 
Than  it  was  erst :  thus  north  and  south 
Went  every  tiding  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
And  that  increasing  ever  mo. 
As  lire  is  Avont  to  quicken  and  go 
From  a  sparkle  sprongen^  amiss. 
Till  all  a  city  brent  up  is. 
And  when  that  that  was  full  up-sprong, 
And  waxen  more  on  every  tongue 
Than "  er  it  was,  and  went  anon 
Up  (o  a  window  out  to  gone. 
Or  but "  it  might  out  there  ypass, 

1  Knowest  thou  not  that  which  is  befallen.  ^  Add  (eke) 

'  And  no  sooner  was  departed  then  from  liini  that  lie  met. 
*  Stopped,  delayed.  ^  Moment.  ^  Also. 

'  Sprung.  8  Before.  *  Ere  ever. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  311 

It  gan  out  creep  at  some  crevass, 

And  flew  forth  faste  for  the  nones.* 

And  sometime  I  saw  there  at  once 

A  leasing  ^  and  a  sad  soothsaw,^ 

That  gonnen  of  aventure  draw,* 

Out  at  a  window  for  to  pace, 

And  when  they  metten  in  that  place 

They  were  achecked  ^  bothe  two. 

And  neither  of  them  might  out  go, 

For  each  other  they  gun  so  crowd. 

Till  each  of  them  gan  cryen  loud. 

Let  me  gon  first ;  Nay,  but  let  me. 

And  here  I  wol  ensuren  thee 

With  vowes,  that  ®  thou  wolt  do  so. 

That  I  shall  never  fro  thee  go, 

But  be  alway  thine  own  sworn  brother ; 

We  wol  meddle ''  us  each  in  other. 

That  no  man,  be  he  ne'er  so  wroth, 

Shall  have  one  of  us  two,  but  both 

At  ones,  as  beside  his  leve,^ 

Come  we  a  morrow  or  on  eve. 

Be  we  ycried  or  still  yrowned. 

Thus  saw  I  false  and  sooth  compowned 

Togeder  fly  for  o  ^  tiding. 

Thus  out  at  holes  gon  to  wring  ^° 

Every  tiding  straight  to  Fame  ; 

And  she  gan  yeven  ^^  each  his  name 

After  her  disposition. 

And  yeve  them  eke  duration, 

Some  to  wexen  and  wanea  soon. 

As  doth  the  fair  and  white  moon, 

And  let  him  gone  :  there  might  I  seen 

Winged  wonders  full  fast  flyen, 

Twenty  thousand  all  in  a  rout 

As  ^olus  them  blew  about. 

And,  Lord  !  this  house  in  alle  times 

Was  full  of  shipmen  and  pilgrimes 

With  scrippes  bretful  ^^  of  leasings, 

1  For  the  occasion  (the  nonce).  ^  j^je,  falsehood.  '  Grave  truth. 

*  Began  by  chance  to  draw.  ^  Checked,  stopped. 

'  Apparently  a  misprint  for  "and,"  that  is,  if.  "^  Intermix. 

^  Without  his  leave?  ^  One.  i°  To  squeeze  out* 

»  Give.  12  Topful. 


312  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Intei-meddeled  with  tidings  ; 

And  eke,  alone  by  them  selve, 

A  many  thousand  times  twelve 

Saw  I  eke  of  these  pardoners, 

Currours,^  and  eke  of  messangers, 

With  boxes  crommed  full  of  lies 

As  ever  vessel  was  with  lees. 

And,  as  I  altherfastest  ^  went 

About,  and  did  all  mine  intent  * 

Me  for  to  playen,*  and  for  to  lear,* 

And  eke  a  tiding  for  to  hear 

That  I  had  heard  of  some  countree, 

That  shall  not  now  be  told  for  me, 

For  it  no  need  is  (readily 

Folk  can  ysing  it  bet  than  I, 

For  all  mote  ®  out,  or  late  or  rathe/ 

Alle  the  sheaves  in  the  lathe),* 

I  hearden  a  great  noise  withal 

"Within  a  corner  of  the  hall. 

There  ®  men  of  love  tidings  told  ; 

And  I  gan  thiderward  behold, 

For  I  saw  renning  every  wight 

As  fast  as  that  they  hadden  might ; 

And  everich  cried.  What  thing  is  that  ? 

And  some  said,  I  n'ot  ^°  never  what : 

And  when  they  were  all  on  an  heap, 

Tho  they  behind  gonnen  up  leap, 

And  clamben  up  on  other  fast, 

And  up  the  noise  on  highen  cast, 

And  treaden  fast  on  other's  heels, 

And  stamp  as  men  done  after  eels ; 

But  at  the  last  I  saw  a  man, 

Wliich  that  I  nought  describe  ne  can, 

But  he  yseemed  for  to  be 

A  man  of  great  auctority. 

At  the  apparition  of  this  unnamed  personage  th<i  poet  awakens 
fi-om  his  dream,  and  the  poem  ends. 

1  Couriers.  ^  Fastest  of  all.  '  Endeavor. 

♦  To  play  or  amuse  myself?  ^  Learn.  ^  Must.  ^  Late  or  soon. 

"  Barn.     Urry  misprints  the  word  "  fathe."     His  punctuation  also  shows  that  ha 
did  not  understand  the  passage. 
*•  Where.  i"  Know  not  (ne  wot). 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  313 

Through  such  deeper  thinking  and  bolder  writing  as  this,  Chau- 
cer appears  to  have  advanced  from  the  descriy^tive  luxuriance  of 
the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  to  his  most  matured  style  in  the  Canter- 
bury Tales.  This  is  not  only  his  greatest  work,  but  it  towers 
above  all  else  that  he  has  written,  like  some  palace  or  cathedral 
ascending  with  its  broad  and  lofty  dimensions  from  among  the 
common  buildings  of  a  city.  His  genius  is  another  thing  here 
altogether  from  what  it  is  in  his  other  writings.  Elsewhere  he 
seems  at  work  only  for  the  day  that  is  passing  over  him  ;  here,  for 
all  time.  All  his  poetical  faculties  put  forth  a  strength  in  the 
Canterbury  Tales  they  have  nowhere  else  shown  ;  not  only  is  his 
knowledge  of  life  and  character  greater,  his  style  firmer,  clearer, 
more  flexible,  and  more  expressive,  his  humor  more  subtle  and 
various,  but  his  fancy  is  more  nimble-winged,  his  imagination  far 
richer  and  more  gorgeous,  his  sensibility  infinitely  more  delicate 
and  more  profovmd.  And  this  great  work  of  Chaucer's  is  nearly 
as  remarkably  distinguished  by  its  peculiar  character  from  the  great 
works  of  other  poets  as  it  is  from  the  rest  of  his  own  compositions. 
Among  ourselves  at  least,  if  we  except  Shakspeare,  no  other  poet 
has  yet  arisen  to  rival  the  author  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  in  the 
entire  assemblage  of  his  various  powers.  Spenser's  is  a  more  aerial, 
Milton's  a  loftier,  song  ;  but  neither  possesses  the  wonderful  com- 
bination of  contrasted  and  almost  opposite  characteristics  which  we 
have  in  Chaucer :  —  the  sportive  fancy,  painting  and  gilding  every- 
thing, with  the  keen,  observant,  matter-of-fact  spirit  that  looks 
through  whatever  it  glances  at ;  the  soaring  and  creative  imagina- 
tion, with  the  homely  sagacity,  and  healthy  relish  for  all  the  reali- 
ties of  things  ;  the  unrivalled  tenderness  and  pathos,  with  the 
quaintest  humor  and  the  most  exuberant  merriment ;  the  wisdom 
at  once  and  the  wit ;  the  all  that  is  best,  in  short,  both  in  poetry 
and  in  prose,  at  the   same  time. 

The  Canterbury  Tales  is  an  unfinished,  or  at  least,  as  we  have 
it,  an  imperfect  work  ;  but  it  contains  above  17,000  verses,  besides 
more  than  a  fourth  of  that  quantity  of  matter  in  prose.  The 
Tales  (including  the  two  in  prose  ^)  are  twenty-four  in  number ; 

^  Mr.  Guest  conceives  that  one  of  these  prose  tales,  the  Tale  of  Meliboeus,  (that 
told  by  the  poet  himself,)  is  a  specimen  of  the  kind  of  poetry  called  cadence,  of  which 
mention  is  made  in  a  passage  that  has  been  quoted  in  a  preceding  page  from  the 
House  of  Fame  (Hist.  Eng.  Rhythms,  ii.  255-258).  "As  the  tale  proceeds,"  he 
says,  "  the  rhythmical  structure  gradually  disappears."  Tyrwhitt,  after  informing 
as  that  Mr.  William  Thomas,  in  one  of  his  MS.  notes  upon  the  copy  of  Urrv's 
VOL.  I.  40 


314  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  they  are  interspersed  with  introductions  to  each,  generally 
short,  called  prologues,  besides  the  Prologue  to  the  whole  work, 
in  which  the  pilgrims  or  narrators  of  the  tales  are  severally  de- 
scribed, and  which  consists  of  between  800  and  900  lines.  The 
Prologue  to  the  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale  is  fully  as  long.  All  the 
twenty-four  tales  are  complete,  except  only  the  Cook's  Tale,  of 
which  we  have  only  a  few  lines,  the  Squire's  Tale,  which  remains 
"  half-told,"  and  the  burlesque  Tale  of  Sir  Thopas,  which  is  de- 
signedly broken  off  in  the  middle.  Of  the  nineteen  complete  tales 
in  verse,  the  longest  are  the  Knight's  Tale  of  2250  verses,  the 
Clerk's  Tale  of  1156,  and  the  Merchant's  Tale  of  1172.1  The 
entire  work,  with  the  exception  of  the  prose  tales  and  the  Rime  of 
Sir  Thopas  (205  lines),  is  in  decasyllabic  (or  hendecasyllabic) 
verse,  arranged  either  in  couplets  or  in  stanzas. 

The  few  extracts  we  can  give  cannot,  of  course,  convey  any 
notion  of  this  vast  and  various  poem  to  those  who  are  not  ac- 
quainted with  it ;  but  those  who  are  may  have  their  recollection 
of  it  refreshed,  and  the  curiosity  of  other  readers  may  be  excited, 
though  not  satisfied,  by  the  two  or  three  passages  we  shall  now 
subjoin. 

The  general  Prologue  is  a  gallery  of  pictures  almost  unmatched 
for  their  air  of  life  and  truthfulness.     Here  is  one  of  them :  — 

There  was  also  a  nun,  a  Prioress 

That  of  her  smiling  was  full  simple  and  coy, 

Her  greatest  oathe  n'as  but  by  Saint  Loy ;  ^ 

And  she  was  cleped  "  Madame  Eglantine. 

Full  well  she  sange  the  service  divine, 

Entuned  in  her  nose  full  sweetely ; 

And  French  she  spake  full  fair  and  fetisly  * 

edition  presented  bv  him  to  the  British  Museum,  had  observed  that  this  tale  seems 
to  have  been  written  in  blank  verse,  adds  :  "  It  is  certain  that  in  the  former  part  of 
it  we  find  a  nnniiier  of  blank  verses  intermixed  in  a  much  greater  proportion  tlian 
in  any  of  our  autiior's  other  prose  writings  ;  but  this  poetical  style  is  not,  I  tliink, 
remarkable  beyond  tlie  first  four  or  five  pages." 

1  Some  of  the  old  editions  add  the  following  spurious  tales: — The  Cook's  Tale 
of  Gamelyn,  in  1787  short  verses  ;  the  Ploughman's  Tale,  with  a  short  prologue,  in 
1383  alternately  rhyming  verses  ;  and  the  Merchant's  Second  Tale,  or  the  History 
of  Beryn,  in  3289  lines,  preceded  by  the  prologue  of  the  Pardoner  ;md  Tapster,  in 
729  lines.     These  are  all  rejected  by  Tyrwhitt. 

■^  That  is,  Saint  Eloy,  or  Eligius.  Oathe  here,  according  to  Mr.  Guest,  is  the  old 
genitive  plural  (originally  atha),  meaning  of  oaths. 

3  Called  '  ♦  Neatly. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  315 

After  the  school  of  Sti-atford  atte  Bow, 
For  French  of  Pai-is  was  to  her  unknow.^ 
At  meate  was  she  well  ytaught  withal ; 
She  let  no  morsel  from  her  lippes  fall, 
Ne  wet  her  fingers  in  her  sauce  deep  ; 
Well  could  she  carry  a  morsel  and  well  keep 
Thatte  no  droppe  ne  fell  upon  her  breast : 
In  curtesy  was  set  full  much  her  lest.^ 
Her  over-lippe  wiped  she  so  clean 
That  in  her  cuppe  was  no  ferthing  '^  seen 
Of  grease  when  she  di-unken  had  her  draught. 
Full  seemely  after  her  meat  she  raught.* 
And  sickerly  ^  she  was  of  gi-eat  disport, 
And  full  pleasant  and  amiable  of  port. 
And  pained  ®  her  to  counterfeiten  cheer 
Of  court,  and  been  estatelich  of  manere, 
And  to  been  holden  digne '  of  reverence. 

But  for  to  speaken  of  her  conscience, 
She  was  so  charitable  and  so  pitous 
She  wolde  weep  if  that  she  saw  a  mouse 
Caught  in  a  trap,  if  it  were  dead  or  bled. 
Of  smale  houndes  had  she  that  she  fed 
With  roasted  flesh,  and  milk,  and  wastel  bread ; 
But  sore  wept  she  if  one  of  them  were  dead, 
Or  if  men  smote  it  with  a  yerde  ^  smart : 
And  all  was  conscience  and  tender  heart. 

Full  seemely  her  wimple  ypinched  was  ; 
Her  nose  tretis,^  her  eyen  grey  as  glass  ; 
Her  mouth  full  small,  and  thereto  ^'^  soft  and  red, 
But  sickerly  she  had  a  fair  forehead ; 
It  was  almost  a  spanne  broad,  I  trow ; 
For  hardily  ^^  she  was  not  undergrow.^^ 

Full  fetise  *'  was  lier  cloak,  as  I  was  ware. 
Of  smale  coral  about  her  arm  she  bare 
A  pair  of  beades  gauded  all  with  green  ; " 
And  thereon  heng  ^^  a  brooch  of  gold  full  sheen, 
On  which  was  first  ywritten  a  crowned  A, 
And  after.  Amor  vincit  omnia. 

1  Unknown.  -  Pleasure.  ^  Smallest  spot.  *  Reached. 

^  Surely.  ^  Took  pams.  ^  Worthy.  8  Yard,  rod 

®  Long  and  well  proportioned.  ^"^  In  addition  to  that.  ^i  Certainly, 

12  Undergrown,  of  a  low  stature.  ^^  Neat. 

^  Having  the  gauds  or  beads  colored  green.  ^  Hung. 


316  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

As  a  companion  to  tliis  perfect  full  length,  we  will  add  that  of 
the  Mendicant  Friar  :  — 

A  Frere  there  was,  a  wanton  and  a  merry, 
A  limitour,^  a  full  solemne  man  ; 
In  all  the  orders  four  is  none  that  can 
So  much  of  dalliance  and  fair  langage. 
He  had  ymade  full  many  a  marriage 
Of  younge  women  at  his  owen  cost ; 
Until  -  his  order  he  was  a  noble  post. 
Full  well  beloved  and  famiher  was  he 
With  franklins  ^  over  all  in  his  countree, 
And  eke  with  worthy  women  of  the  town ; 
For  he  had  power  of  confessioun, 
As  said  him  selfe,  more  than  a  curat. 
For  of  his  order  he  was  a  licenciat. 
Full  sweetly  hearcle  he  confession, 
And  pleasant  was  his  absolution. 
He  was  an  easy  man  to  give  penance 
There  as  he  wist  to  han  a  good  pitance ;  * 
For  unto  a  poor  order  for  to  give 
Is  signe  that  a  man  is  well  yshrive ;  ^ 
For,  if  he  gave,  he  durste  make  avant,^ 
He  wiste  that  a  man  was  repentant ; 
For  many  a  man  so  hard  is  of  his  heart 
He  may  not  weep  although  him  sore  smart ; 
Therefore,  instead  of  weeping  and  prayeres, 
Men  mote  give  silver  to  the  poore  freres. 

His  tippet  was  aye  farsed "  full  of  knives 
And  pinnes  for  to  given  faire  wives : 
And  certainly  he  had  a  merry  note  ; 
Well  could  he  sing  and  playen  on  a  rote.' 
Of  yeddings  ®  he  bare  utterly  the  pris.-^" 
His  neck  was  white  as  is  the  flower  de  Us ;  ** 
Tliereto  he  strong  was  as  a  champioun, 
And  knew  well  the  taverns  in  every  town, 
And  every  hosteler  and  gay  tapstere, 

'  A  friar  liceiisofl  to  beg  within  a  certain  district.  ^  XJnto. 

•*  Freeholders  of  the  superior  class. 

*  Where  he  Itnew  he  should  have  a  good  pittance  or  fee. 

6  Shriven.  6  Boast.  '^  Stuffed. 

^  A  musical  instrument  so  called.  ^  Stories,  romances. 

»»  Prize.  "  Fleur  de  lis,  lily. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  317 

Better  than  a  lazar  or  a  beggere  ; 
For  unto  swich  ^  a  worthy  man  as  he 
Accordeth  nought  '^  as,**  by  his  facultee,* 
To  haven  \vith  sick  lazars  acquaintance  ; 
It  is  not  honest,  it  may  not  avance,^ 
As  ®  for  to  dealen  with  no  swich  poorail ' 
But  all  with  rich  and  sellers  of  vitail.® 
And,  over  ^  all,  there  as  ^^  profit  should  arise, 
Curteis  ^^  he  was,  and  lowly  of  service  ; 
There  n'as  no  man  no  where  so  virtuous ; 
He  was  the  best  beggar  in  all  his  house ; 
Ajid  gave  a  certain  ferme  ^^  for  the  grant 
None  of  his  brethren  came  in  his  haunt ; 
For,  though  a  widow  hadde  but  a  shoe, 
So  pleasant  was  his  Jn  principio, 
Yet  would  he  have  a  ferthing  or  he  went ; 
His  purchase  ^^  was  well  better  than  his  rer  t. 
And  rage  he  could  as  it  had  been  a  whelp : 
In  lovedays  ^*  there  could  he  mochel  ^®  help  ; 
For  there  was  he  nat  ^^  like  a  cloisterere 
With  threadbare  cope,  as  is  a  poor  S(;holere  ; 
But  he  was  like  a  maister  or  a  pope  : 
Of  double  worsted  was  his  semi-cope, 
That  round  was  as  a  bell  out  of  the  press.^'^ 
Somewhat  he  lisped  for  his  wantonness. 
To  make  his  English  sweet  upon  his  tongue  ; 
And  in  his  hai-ping,  when  that  he  had  sung, 
His  eyen  twinkled  in  his  head  aright. 
As  don  the  sterres  ^^  in  a  frosty  night. 
This  worthy  limitour,  was  clep'd  Huberd. 

It  may  be  observed  in  all  these  extracts  liow  fond  Chaucer  is 
of  as  it  were  welding  one  couplet  and  one  paragraph  to  anotlieit, 

1  Such.  ^  It  suits  not,  is  not  fitting. 

^  As  in  tliis  and  in  other  forms  seems  to  have  the  effect  of  merely  generating  or 
giving  indefiniteness  to  the  expression. 

*  Having  regard  to  his  quality  or  functions  ?  ^  Profit. 

^  As  in  the  fourth  line  preceding.  t  Poor  people. 

*  Victual.  '^  In  addition  to.  i"  Wherever. 
11  Courteous.                          i-  Farm. 

1-  What  he  got  by  begging  and  the  exercise  of  his  profession. 
1^  Days  formerly  appointed  for  tlie  amicable  settlement  of  differences. 
15  Much.  1"  Not. 

1'  Not  understood.     It  is  the  bell  or  the  semicope  that  is  described  as  out  of  ih» 
nrcss  ?  1^  As  do  tlie  stars. 


318  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

by  allowing  tlie  sense  to  flow  on  from  the  last  line  of  the  one 
through  the  first  of  the  other,  thus  producing  an  alternating  move- 
ment of  the  sense  and  the  sound,  instead  of  making  the  one 
accompany  the  other,  as  is  the  general  practice  of  our  mod-ji-n 
poetiy.  This  has  been  noticed,  and  a  less  obvious  part  of  tlie 
ert'ect  pomted  out,  by  a  poet  of  our  own  day,  who  has  shown  how 
well  he  felt  Chaucer  by  something  more  and  much  better  than 
criticism.  "  Chaucer,"  observes  Leigh  Himt,  "  took  tlie  custom 
from  the  French  poets,  who  have  retained  it  to  this  day.  It  surely 
has  a  fine  air,  both  of  conclusion  and  resumption ;  as  though  it 
would  leave  off  when  it  thought  proper,  knowing  how  well  it 
could  recommence."  ^  It  is  so  favorite  a  usage  with  Chaucer,  that 
it  may  be  sometimes  made  available  to  settle  the  reading,  or  at 
least  the  pointing  and  sense  of  a  doubtful  passage.  And  it  is  also 
common  with  his  contemporary  Gower. 

The  following  is  the  first  introduction  to  the  reader  of  Emily, 
the  heroine  of  the  Knight's  Tale  of  Palamon  and  Arcite:  — 

Thus  passeth  year  by  year,  and  day  by  day, 
Till  it  fell  ones  in  a  morrow  of  May 
That  Emily,  that  fairer  was  to  seen 
Than  is  the  lilly  upon  his  staJke  green, 
And  fresher  than  the  May  with  floures  new 
(For  AN-ith  the  rose  colour  strof '^  her  hue ; 
I  n'ot  ^  which  Mas  the  finer  of  them  two) 
Ere  it  was  day,  as  she  was  Avont  to  do. 
She  wa.s  arisen  and  all  ready  dight, 
For  INIay  wol  have  no  slogardy  *  a  night ; 
The  season  pricketh  every  gentle  heart, 
And  maketh  him  out  of  his  sleep  to  start, 
And  saith,  Arise,  and  do  thine  observance. 

This  maketh  Emily  han  ^  remembrance 
To  don  honour  to  May,  and  for  to  rise. 
Yclothed  was  she  fresh  for  to  devise :  ® 
Her  yellow  hair  was  broided'  in  a  tress 
Behind  her  back,  a  yerde  long  I  guess ; 

*  Preface  to  Poetical  Works,  8vo.  Lon.  1832.  See  also  Mr.  Hunt's  fine  imitation 
ind  continuation  of  the  Squire's  Tale  in  tlie  Fourth  Number  of  the  Liberal.  Lon 
1823. 

2  Strove,  8  "Wot  not,  know  not.  *  Sloth. 

*  flave.  ®  ^Yitll  exactness  {point  devise).  '  Braided. 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER.  319 

And  in  the  garden  as  the  sun  uprist^ 
She  walketh  up  and  down  wliere  as  her  list :  ^ 
She  gathereth  floures  partie  ^  white  and  red 
To  make  a  sotel  *  gerlond  ^  for  her  head : 
And  as  an  angel  heavenlich  she  sung. 

Of  the  many  other  noble  passages  in  this  Tale  we   can  onliif 
present  a  portion  of  the  description  of  the  Temple  of  Mars :  — 

Why  should  I  not  as  well  eke  tell  you  all 

The  portraiture  that  was  upon  the  wall 

Within  the  Temple  of  mighty  Mars  the  Red? 

All  painted  was  the  wall  in  length  and  bred® 

Like  to  the  estres '  of  the  grisley  place 

That  hight  ^  the  great  Temple  of  Mars  in  Trace," 

In  thilke  ^^  cold  and  frosty  region 

There  as  Mars  hath  his  sovereign  mansion. 

First  on  the  wall  was  painted  a  forest, 
In  which  there  wonneth  ^^  neither  man  ne  beast ; 
With  knotty  knarry  barren  trees  old, 
Of  stubbes  sharp  and  hidous  to  behold, 
In  which  there  ran  a  rumble  and  a  swough,^^ 
As  though  a  storm  should  bresten  '^  every  bough ; 
And  downward  from  an  hill  under  a  bent  ^'^ 
There  stood  the  Temple  of  Mars  Armipotent, 
Wrought  all  of  burned  ^^  steel,  of  wliich  the  entree 
Was  long,  and  strait,  and  ghastly  for  to  see  ; 
And  thereout  came  a  rage  and  swich  a  vise  *® 
That  it  made  all  the  gates  for  to  rise. 
The  northern  light  in  at  the  dore  shone  ; 
For  window  on  the  wall  ne  was  there  none 
Through  which  men  niighten  any  light  discern. 
The  door  was  all  of  athamant  ^^  etern, 
Yclenched  overthwart  and  endelong  ^^ 
With  iron  tough,  and,  for  to  make  it  strong. 
Every  pillar  the  temple  to  sustene 

^  Uprises.  ^  Where  it  pleaseth  her.  ^  Mixed  of. 

*  Subtle,  artfully  contrived.  *  Garland.  ^  Breadth. 

"•  The  interior.  ^  Is  called.  ®  Thrace. 

J»  That  same.  "  Dwclleth. 

^^  A  long  sighing  noise,  such  as  in  Scotland  is  called  a  sugh. 

'^  Was  going  to  break.  i*  A  declivity.  i^  Burnished, 

i^  A  violent  blast  ?  i"  Adamant.  ^^  Across  and  lengthways 


320  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE 

"Was  tonne-great,^  of  iron  bright  and  shene. 
There  saw  I  first  the  dark  imagining 
Of  Felony,  and  all  the  compassing ; 
The  cruel  Ire,  red  as  any  gled  ;  ^ 
The  Picke-purse,  and  eke  the  pale  Dread ; 
The  Smiler  with  the  knife  under  the  cloak ; 
The  shepen  ^  brenning  ^  with  the  blake  smoke  ; 
The  treason  of  the  murdering  in  the  bed ; 
The  open  wer,^  with  woundes  all  bebled ; 
Contek  ^  with  bloody  knife  and  sharp  menace ; 
All  full  of  chirking''  was  that  sorry  place. 
The  sleer  ^  of  himself  yet  saw  I  there  ; 
His  hearte-blood  hath  bathed  all  his  hair ; 
The  nail  ydriven  in  the  shod  ^  on  hight ; 
The  colde  death,  with  mouth  gaping  upright. 
Amiddes  of  the  Temple  sat  Mischance, 
With  discomfort  and  sorry  countenance  : 
Yet  saw  I  Woodness  ^°  laughing  in  his  rage, 
Armed  Complaint,  Outhees,-^^  and  fierce  Outrage  ; 
The  carrain  ^'"  in  the  bush,  with  throat  ycorven  ;  ^' 
A  thousand  slain,  and  not  of  qualm  ystorven  ;  ^* 
The  tyrant,  with  the  prey  by  force  yraft ;  ^^ 
The  town  destroyed  ;  —  there  was  nothing  laft.^® 

The  statue  of  Mars  upon  a  carte  ^'  stood 
Armed,  and  looked  grim  as  he  Avere  wood  ;  ^* 
And  over  his  head  there  shinen  two  figures 
Of  sterres,  that  been  cleped  in  scriptures  ** 
That  one  Puella,  that  other  Rubeus. 
This  God  of  Armes  was  arrayed  thus : 
A  wolf  there  stood  beforn  him  at  his  feet 
With  eyen  red,  and  of  a  man  he  eat. 

Oliaiicer's  merriment,  at  once  hearty  and  sly,  has  of  course  the 
freedom  and  unscrupnlonsness  of  his  time  ;  and  much  of  the  best 
of  it  cannot  be  produced  in  our  day  without  offence  to  our  greatest 
sensitiveness,  at  least  in  the  matter  of  expression.     Besides,  humor 

*  Of  the  circumference  of  a  tun.  ^  Burning  coal. 

'  Stable.  *  Burning.  ^  Wtir. 

"  Contention.  "  Disagreeable  sound.  ^  Slayer. 

9  Hair  of  the  head.  i"  Madness.  "  Outcry, 

w  Carrion.  "  Cut.  "  Dead  (starved). 

«  Reft.  '»  Left.  "  Car,  chariot. 

1*  Mad.  1"  Stars  that  are  called  in  bcroks. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  321 

in  poetry,  or  any  other  kind  of  writing,  can  least  of  all  qualities  be 
effectively  exemplified  in  extract :  its  subtle  life,  dependent  upon 
the  thousand  minutise  of  place  and  connection,  perishes  under  the 
process  of  excision  ;  it  is  to  attempt  to  exhibit,  not  the  building  by 
the  brick,  but  the  living  man  by  a  "  pound  of  his  fair  flesh."  We 
will  venture,  however,  to  give  one  or  two  short  passages.  Nothing 
is  more  admirable  in  the  Canterbury  Tales  than  the  manner  in 
which  the  character  of  the  Host  is  sustained  throughout.  He  is_ 
the  moving  spirit  of  the  poem  from  first  to  last.  Here  is  his  first 
introduction  to  us  presiding  over  the  company  at  supper  in  his  o^vii 

gentle  hostelry, 
That  highte  the  Tabard  faste  by  the  Bell, 

in   South wark,  on  the  evening  before  they  set  out  on  their  pil 
grimage :  — 

Great  cheere  made  our  Host  us  everich  one, 
And  to  the  supper  set  he  us  anon, 
And  served  us  with  vitail  of  the  best ; 
Strong  was  the  wine,  and  well  to  drink  us  lest.* 
A  seemly  man  our  Hoste  was  with  all 
For  to  han  been  a  marshal  in  an  hall ; 
A  large  man  he  was,  with  eyen  steep ; 
A  fairer  burgess  is  there  none  in  Cheap  ; 
Bold  of  his  speech,  and  wise,  and  well  ytaught, 
And  of  manhood  ylaked  ^  right  him  naught : 
Eke  thereto  '^  was  he  right  a  merry  man  ; 
And  after  supper  playen  he  began, 
And  spake  of  mirth  amonges  other  things, 
When  that  we  hadden  made  our  reckonings, 
And  said  thus  :  Now,  Lordings,  triiely 
Ye  been  to  me  welcome  right  heartily  ; 
For,  by  my  troth,  if  that  I  shall  not  lie, 
I  saw  nat  this  yer  swich  ^  a  company 
At  ones  in  tliis  herberwe  ^  as  is  now ; 
Fain  would  I  do  you  mirth  an  I  wist  how  ; 
And  of  a  mirth  I  am  right  now  bethought 
To  don  you  ease,  and  it  shall  cost  you  nought. 
Ye  gon  to  Canterbury ;   God  you  speed, 
The  blissful  martyr  quite  you  your  meed 

1  It  pleased  us.  2  Lacked. 

*  Such.  5  Inn, 

VOL.   I.  41 


322  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

And  well  I  wot  as  ye  gon  by  the  way 
Ye  shapen  ^  you  to  talken  and  to  play  ; 
For  triiely  comfort  ne  mirth  is  none 
To  riden  by  the  way  dumb  as  the  stone ; 
And  therefore  would  I  maken  you  disport, 
As  I  said  ei-st,  and  don  you  some  comfort. 
And  if  you  liketh  all  by  one  assent 
Now  for  to  stonden  ^  at  my  judgement, 
And  for  to  werchen  '  as  I  shall  you  say 
To  morrow,  when  ye  riden  on  the  way, 
Now,  by  my  fader's  soule  that  is  dead, 
But  ye  be  merry  *  smiteth  ^  off  my  head : 
Hold  up  your  hondes  withouten  more  speech. 

They  all  gladly  assent ;  upon  Avhich  mine  Host  proposes  farther 
that  each  of  them  (they  were  twenty -nine  in  all,  besides  himself) 
should  tell  two  stories  in  going,  and  two  more  in  returning,  and 
that,  when  they  got  back  to  the  Tabard,  the  one  who  had  told 
the  "  tales  of  best  sentence  and  most  solace  "  should  have  a  supper 
at  the  charge  of  the  rest.  And,  adds  the  eloquent,  sagacious,  and 
large-hearted  projector  of  the  scheme, 

—  for  to  make  you  the  more  meriy 
I  woll  my  selven  gladly  with  you  ride 
Right  at  mine  owen  cost,  and  be  your  guide. 
And  who  that  woll  my  judgement  withsay  * 
Shall  pay  for  all  we  spenden  by  the  way. 

Great  as  the  extent  of  the  poem  is,  therefoi-e,  what  has  been 
executed,  or  been  preserved,  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  design  ;  for 
this  liberal  plan  would  have  afforded  us  no  fewer  than  a  hundi-ed 
and  twenty  tales.  Nothing  can  be  better  than  the  triumphant  way 
in  which  mine  Host  of  the  Tabard  is  made  to  go  through  the  duties 
of  his  self-assumed  post ;  —  his  promptitude,  his  decision  upon  all 
emergencies,  and  at  the  same  time  his  good  feeling  never  at  fault  any 
more  than  his  good  sense,  his  inexhaustible  and  unflagging  fun  and 
spirit,  and  the  all-accommodating  humor  and  i)ei-fect  sympathy  with 
which,  without  for  a  moment  stooping  from  his  own  frank  and 
manly  character,  he  bears  himself  to  every  individual  of  the  varied 

1  Prepare  yourselves,  intend.  -  Stand.  ^  Work,  do. 

*  If  ye  shall  not  be  merry. 

^  Smite.     The  imperative  has  generally  this  termination. 

•  Resist,  oppose,  withstand. 


GEOFFREY   CHAUCER.  323 

cavalcade.  He  proposes  that  they  should  draw  cuts  to  decide  who 
was  to  begin  ;  and  with  how  genuine  a  courtesy,  at  once  encourag- 
ing and  reverential,  he  first  addresses  himself  to  the  modest  Clerk, 
and  the  gentle  Lady  Prioress,  and  the  Knight,  who  also  was  "  of 
his  port  as  meek  as  is  a  maid :  "  — 

Sir  Knight,  quod  he,  my  maister  and  my  lord, 
Now  drawetli  cut,  for  that  is  mine  accord. 
Cometh  near,  quod  he,  my  Lady  Prioress  ; 
And  ye.  Sir  Clerk,  let  be  your  shamefastness, 
Ne  studieth  nought ;  lay  hand  to,  every  man. 

But  for  personages  of  another  order,  again,  he  is  another  man,  giv- 
ing and  taking  jibe  and  jeer  with  the  hardest  and  boldest  in  their 
own  style  and  humor,  only  more  nimbly  and  hap])ily  than  any  of 
them,  and  without  ever  compromising  his  dignity.  And  all  the 
while  his  kindness  of  heart,  simple  and  quick,  and  yet  considerate, 
is  as  conspicuous  as  the  cordial  ap])reciation  and  delight  with  which 
he  enters  into  the  spirit  of  what  is  going  forward,  and  enjoys  tho 
success  of  his  scheme.     For  example,  — 

When  that  the  Knight  had  thus  his  tale  told. 
In  all  tlie  company  n'as  there  young  ne  old 
That  he  ne  said  it  was  a  noble  storie, 
And  worthy  to  be  drawen  to  memorie,^ 
And  namely  ^  the  gentles  everich  one. 
Our  Hoste  lough  ^  and  swore.  So  mote  I  gon    • 
This  goth  aright ;  unbokeled  is  the  male  ;  ® 
Let  see  now  who  shall  tell  another  tale. 
For  triiely  this  game  is  well  begonne  : 
Now  telleth  ye.  Sir  Monk,  if  that  ye  conne,® 
Somewhat  to  quiten  with  '  tlie  Knighte's  tale. 
The  Miller,  that  for-dronken  ^  was  all  pale, 
So  that  unneaths  ^  upon  his  horse  he  sat. 
He  n'old  avalen  ^°  neither  hood  ne  hat, 
Ne  abiden  ^^  no  man  for  his  courtesy. 
But  in  Pilate's  voice  ^'^  he  gan  to  cry, 

*  Probably  pronounced  stn-rl-e  and  me-md-zi-e.  ^  Especially, 

^  Laughed.  *  So  may  I  fore  well.  ^  Unbuckled    ■<  v«i*.  S  -ci^  et. 

®  Can.  "^  To  requite.  ^  Very  drunu 

'  With  difficulty.        i"  Would  not  doff  or  lower.      "  Stopfer. 
'■■'  "  In  such  a  voice  as  Pilate  was  used  to  speak  with  in  the  M_>  -''leries.     Pi'ate 

hoing  an  odious  character,  was  probably  represented  as  speaking  wi'f)  a  hais^i,  dis 

agreeable  voice." —  Tynchltt. 


824  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

And  swore,  By  armes,  and  by  blood  and  bones, 

I  can  ^  a  noble  tale  for  the  nones,^ 

Witl   which  I  wol  now  quite  the  Knightes  tale. 

Our  Hoste  saw  that  he  was  di'onken  of  ale, 
And  said,  Abide,  Robin,  ray  leve  ^  brother ; 
Some  better  man  shall  tell  us  first  another ; 
Abide  and  let  us  werken  *  thriftily. 

By  Goddes  soul,  quod  he,  that  woll  not  I, 
For  I  woll  speak,  or  elles  go  my  way. 

Our  Host  answered,  Tell  on  a  devil  way  ; 
Tliou  art  a  fool ;  tliy  wit  is  overcome. 
Now,  hearkeneth,  quod  the  Miller,  all  and  some  ; 
But  first  I  make  a  protestatioun 
That  I  am  drunk,  I  know  it  by  my  soun, 
And  therefore,  if  that  I  misspeak  or  say, 
"Wite  it  ^  the  ale  of  Southwark,  I  you  pray. 

The  Miller  is  at  last  allowed  to  tell  his  tale  —  which  is  more  ac- 
cordant with  his  chai'acter,  and  the  condition  he  was  in,  than  with 
either  good  morals  or  good  manners  ;  —  as  the  poet  observes  :  — 

What  should  I  more  say,  but  this  Millere 
He  n'old  his  wordes  for  no  man  forbere. 
But  told  his  cherle's  ^  tale  in  his  manere  ; 
Methinketli  that  I  shall  reheai-se  it  here  : 
And  therefore  every  gentle  wight  I  pray 
For  Goddes  love,  as  deem  not  that  I  say, 
Of  evil  intent,  but  that  I  mote  rehearse 
Their  tales  all,  al  be  they  better  or  weree, 
Or  elles  falsen  some  of  my  matere : 
And,  therefore,  whoso  list  it  not  to  hear, 
Turn  over  the  leaf,  and  chese ''  another  tale ; 
For  he  shall  find  enow,  both  great  and  smale, 
Of  storial  thing  that  touclietli  gentiless. 
And  eke  morality  and  holiness. 

The  Miller's  Tale  is  capped  by  another  in  the  same  style  fi'om 
his  fellow  "  churl '"  the  Reve  (or  Bailiff')  — wlio  before  he  begins, 
however,  avails  himself  of  the  privilege  of  his  advanced  years  to 
prelude  away  for  some  time  in  a  ])reaching  strain,  till  liis  eloquence 
is  suddenly  cut  short  by  the  voice  of  authority:  — 

•  Know.  "  For  the  nonce,  for  the  occasion.  ^  Dear. 

■•  Go  to  work.  ^  Lay  tlie  blaiue  of  it  on.        **  Chxirl's.        ''  Choose. 


(GEOFFREY    CHAUCER.  326 

"When  that  our  Host  had  heard  this  sermouing, 
He  gan  to  speak  as  lordly  as  a  king, 
And  saide,  What  amouiiteth  all  this  wit  ? 
"What,  shall  we  speak  all  day  of  holy  writ  ? 
The  devil  made  a  Reve  for  to  preach. 
Or  of  a  souter  ^  a  shipman  or  a  leech.^ 
Say  forth  thy  tale,  and  tarry  not  the  time ; 
Lo  Depefbrd,^  and  it  is  half  way  prime  ;  * 
Lo  Greenewich,  there  many  a  shrew  is  in :  * 
It  were  all  time  thy  Tale  to  begin. 

The  laf  t  specimen  we  shall  give  of  "  our  Host "  shall  be  from 
^lle  Clerk's  Prologue  :  — 

Sir  Clerk  of  Oxenford,  our  Hoste  said, 
Ye  ride  as  still  and  coy  as  doth  a  maid 
"Were  newe  spoused,  sitting  at  the  board ; 
This  day  ne  heard  I  of  your  tongue  a  word. 
I  trow  ye  study  abouten  some  sophime,® 
But  Salomon  saith  that  every  thing  hath  time. 
For  Godde's  sake  as  beth '  of  better  cheer  ; 
It  is  no  time  for  to  studien  here. 
Tell  us  some  merry  tale  by  your  fay ;  ^ 
For  what  man  that  is  entered  in  a  play 
He  needes  must  unto  the  play  assent. 
But  preacheth  not,  as  freres  don  in  Lent, 
To  make  us  for  our  olde  sinnes  weep, 
Ne  that  thy  tale  make  us  not  to  sleep. 
Tell  us  some  merry  thing  of  aventures  ; 
Your  terms,  your  coloures,  and  your  figures, 
Keep  them  in  store  till  so  be  ye  indite 
High  style,  as  when  that  men  to  kinges  write. 
Speaketh  so  plain  at  this  time,  I  you  pray. 
That  we  may  understonden  what  ye  say. 

This  worthy  Clerk  benignely  answerd ; 
Hoste,  quod  he,  I  am  under  your  yerde  ; 
Ye  have  of  us  as  now  the  governance, 
And  therefore  would  I  do  you  obeisance, 
As  fer  as  reason  asketh  hardily.^ 

^  Cobbler.  ^  physician,  ^  Deptford. 

*  Tyrwhitt  supposes  this  means  lialf-past  seven  in  the  morning. 
'■>  In  -which  (wherein)  is  many  a  shrew. 
•  ^  Sophism,  perhaps  generally  for  a  logical  argument. 
'  Be.  **  Faith.  ^  Surely. 


S"26  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

I  wol  you  tell  a  tale  which  that  I 
Learned  at  Padow  of  a  worthy  clerk, 
As  preved  ^  by  his  wordes  and  his  werk : 
He  is  now  dead  and  nailed  in  his  chest ; 
I  pray  to  God  so  yeve  his  soule  rest. 
Francis  Petrarch,  the  laureat  poete 
Highte  this  clerk,  whose  rhethoricke  sweet 
Enlumined  all  Itaille  of  poetrj'. 
As  Linian  ^  did  of  philosophy, 
Or  law,  or  other  art  particulere ; 
But  death,  that  wol  not  sufFre  us  dweUen  here 
But  as  it  were  a  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
Them  both  hath  slain,  and  alle  we  shall  die. 

And  our  last  specimen  of  the  Canterbury  Tales,  and  also  of 
Chaucer,  being  a  passage  exhibiting  that  power  of  pathos  in  the 
delicacy  as  well  as  in  the  depth  of  which  he  is  unrivalled,  shall  be 
taken  from  tliis  tale  told  by  the  Clerk,  the  exquisite  tale  of  Griselda. 
Her  luisband  has  carried  his  trial  of  her  submission  and  endurance 
to  the  last  point  by  informing  her  that  she  must  return  to  her 
father,  and  that  his  new  wife  is  "  coming  by  the  way  "  :  — 

And  she  again  answerd  in  patience : 

My  lord,  quod  she,  I  wot,  and  wist  alway, 

How  that  betwixen  your  magnificence 

And  my  povert  no  wight  ne  can  ne  may 

Maken  comparison  :  it  is  no  nay : 

I  ne  held  me  never  digne  ^  in  no  manere 

To  be  your  wife,  ne  yet  your  chamberere.* 

And  in  this  house  there  ^  ye  me  lady  made 
(The  highe  God  take  I  for  my  witness, 
And  all  so  wisly  ®  he  my  soule  glade) 
I  never  held  me  lady  ne  maistress, 
But  humble  servant  to  your  worthiness, 
And  ever  shall,  while  that  my  life  may  dure, 
Aboven  every  woi'ldly  creature. 

That  ye  so  long,  of  your  benignity, 
Han ''  holden  me  in  honour  and  nobley,^ 

1  Proved.  ^  A  great  lawyer  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

«  Worthy.  *  Chamhermaid.  ^  Where.      . 

«  Surely"  '  Have.  **  NobiUty. 


GEOFFREY  CHAUCER.  32 1 

Whereas  ^  I  was  not  worthy  for  to  be, 
That  thank  I  God  and  you,  to  whom  I  pray 
Foryeld^  it  you  :  there  is  no  more  to  say. 
Unto  my  fader  gladly  wol  I  wend. 
And  with  him  dwell  unto  my  lives  end. 


God  shielde  swich  a  lordes  wife  to  take 
Another  man  to  husband  or  to  make.* 

And  of  your  newe  wife  God  of  his  grace 
So  grant  you  weale  and  prosperity  ; 
For  I  M  ol  gladly  yielden  her  my  place, 
In  which  that  I  was  blissful  wont  to  be : 
For,  sith  it  liketh  you,  my  lord,  quod  she, 
That  whilome  weren  all  my  heartes  rest. 
That  I  shall  gon,  I  wol  go  where  you  list. 

But,  thereas  *  ye  me  profer  swich  dowair  ® 
As  I  first  brought,  it  is  well  in  my  mind 
It  were  my  wretched  clothes,  nothing  fair. 
The  which  to  me  were  hard  now  for  to  find. 
0  goode  God!  how  gentle  and  how  kind 
Ye  seemed  by  your  speech  and  your  visage 
The  day  that  maked  loas  our  marriage  ! 

But  sooth  is  said,  algate  ®  I  find  it  true, 
For  in  effect  it  preved '  is  on  me, 
Love  is  not  old  as  when  that  it  is  new. 
But  certes.  Lord,  for  non  adversity  ^ 
To  dien  in  this  case,  it  shall  not  be 
That  ever  in  word  or  werk  I  shall  repent 
That  I  you  yave  mine  heart  in  whole  intent. 

My  lord,  ye  wot  that  in  my  fader's  place 
Ye  did  me  strip  out  of  my  poore  weed. 
And  richely  ye  clad  me  of  your  grace : 
To  you  brought  I  nought  elles,  out  of  drede,' 
But  faith,  and  nakedness,  and  maidenhede  : 
And  here  again  your  clothing  I  restore, 
And  eke  your  wedding  ring,  for  evermore. 

1  Where.  2  Repay.  ^  Mate.  *  Where** 

'  Such  dower.  ^  In  every  way.  ^  Proved. 

*  For  no  unhappiness  that  may  be  my  lot  wore  it  evon  to  die  1        ^  Doubt. 


328  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  remnant  of  your  jewels  ready  be 
Within  your  chamber,  I  dare  it  safely  sayn. 
Naked  out  of  my  fader's  house,  quod  she, 
I  came,  and  naked  I  mote  turn  again. 
All  your  pleasance  wold  I  follow  fain : 
But  yet  I  hope  it  be  not  your  intent 
That  I  smockless  out  of  your  palace  went. 

Let  me  not  like  a  worm  go  by  the  way : 
Remember  you,  mine  owen  lord  so  dear, 
I  was  your  wife,  though  I  unworthy  were. 


The  smock,  quod  he,  that  thou  hast  on  thy  bake 
Let  it  be  still,  and  bear  it  forth  with  thee. 
But  well  unneathes  ^  thilke  ^  word  he  spake, 
But  went  his  way  for  ruth  and  for  pitee. 
Before  the  folk  herselven  strippeth  she. 
And  in  her  smock,  with  foot  and  head  all  bare, 
Toward  her  father's  house  forth  is  she  fare.^ 

The  folk  her  followen  weeping  in  her  way, 
And  Fortune  aye  they  cursen  as  they  gone  ; 
But  she  fro  weeping  kept  her  eyen  drey,* 
Ne  in  this  time  word  ne  spake  she  none. 
Her  fader,  that  this  tiding  heard  anon, 
Curseth  the  day  and  time  that  nature 
Shope  liira  ^  to  been  a  lives  ®  creature. 

There  is  scarcely  perhaps  to  be  found  anywhere  in  poetry  a  finer 
burst  of  natural  feehng  than  iu  the  lines  we  have  printed  in  italics. 


JOHN   GOWEK. 

Contemporary  with  Cliaucer,  and  probably  bom  a  few  years 
earlier,  though  of  the  two  he  survived  to  the  latest  date,  for  his 
deatli  did  not  take  place  till  the  year  1408,  was  John  Gower.  It 
is  alHrnied  by  Leland  in  his  Coinmentarii  de  Scrij)toribus  Britan- 
nicis  that  lie  was  of  the  ancient  family,  said  to  have  been  seated 

1  With  gTo;it  dimculty.  2  xiiis  same.  '  Gone. 

*  Dry.  6  Formed.  ^  Living. 


JOHN   GOWER.  329 

at  Stitenham,  or  SIttenham,  in  Yorksliire,  before  the  Conquest,  of 
which  the  Duke  of  Sutherland  is  now  the  head ;  and  Mr.  Todd, 
in  his  valuable  Illustrations  of  the  Lives  and  Writings  of  Gower 
and  Chaucer  (8vo.  Lon.  1810),  has  published  a  deed  from  the 
charter-chest  of  the  Duke  (then  Marquis  of  Stafford),  dated  at 
Stitenham  in  1346,  to  which  the  first  of  the  subscribing  witnesses 
is  Johannes  G-oiver,  and  an  indorsement  upon  which,  but  in  a  hand 
which  is  admitted  to  be  at  least  a  century  later,  states  this  person 
to  have  been  "  Sir  John  Gower  the  poet."  This  would  make 
Gower  to  have  been  born  before  1326  at  the  latest,  and  to  have 
been  some  years  beyond  eighty  when  he  died ;  Avhich  is  consistent 
enough  with  the  manner  in  which  his  name  is  generally  mentioned 
by  old  writers  along  with  but  before  that  of  Chaucer,  and  with  the 
express  statement  in  some  of  the  earlier  accounts  that  he  was  the 
senior  of  the  two.  But  it  has  since  been  conclusively  shown  by 
Sir  Harris  Nicolas  that  no  reliance  can  be  placed  u})on  these  asser- 
tions and  inferences,  and  that  Gower  was  really  not  a  North  of 
England,  but  a  South  of  England  man,  and  resided  in  the  comity 
of  Kent.-^  It  is  proved,  however,  by  his  will,  published  by  Mr. 
Todd  (and  previously  by  Gough,  in  his  Sepulchral  Monuments, 
2  vols.  fol.  1786),  that  he  was  a  person  of  condition,  and  possessed 
of  considerable  property.  He  and  Chaucer  were  friends,  as  well 
as  contemporaries  and  brother-poets  ;  and  there  appears  to  be  no 
sufficient  reason  for  the  notion  that  has  been  taken  up  by  most  of 
the  modern  biographers  of  the  latter,  that  they  were  alienated  from 
one  another  in  their  old  age.^  It  may  be  safely  assumed,  at  least, 
that  their  friendship  remained  unbroken  down  to  1393,  the  year  in 
which  Gower,  as  he  tells  us  himself,  finished  his  Confessio  Amantis, 
where  near  the  end  he  puts  the  following  compliment  to  Chaucer 
into  the  mouth  of  Venus  :  — 

And  greet  well  Chaucer  when  ye  meet, 
As  my  disciple  and  my  poete ; 
For  in  the  floures  of  his  youth, 
In  sondry  wise,  as  he  well  couth, 
Of  ditties  and  of  songes  glade, 
The  which  he  for  my  sake  made, 

1  Retrospective  Reviews,  Second  Series,  ii.  Ill  ;  and  Dr.  Pauli's  Introductory 
to  the  Confessio  Amantis. 

2  See  the  remarks  of  Sir  Harris  Nicolas,  in  his  Life  of  Chaucer,  p.  39. 
VOL.   I.  42 


330  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  land  fulfilled  is  over  all ; 
Whereof  to  him  in  special, 
Above  all  other,  I  am  most  hold :  * 
Forthy  ^  now  in  his  dayes  old 
Thou  shalle  him  tell  this  message, 
That  he  upon  his  latter  age, 
To  set  an  end  of  all  his  werk, 
As  he  which  is  mine  owne  clerk, 
Do  make  his  Testament  of  Love, 
As  thou  hast  done  thy  shrift  above, 
So  that  my  court  it  may  record. 

This  was  certainly  liberal  repayment  for  Chaucer's  dedication 
to  his  fi'iend,  probably  many  years  before,  of  his  Troilus  and 
Creseide,  or  rather  of  half  that  work,  in  the  following  sober 
Hnes : — 

O  moral  Gower  !  this  booke  I  direct 

To  thee,  and  to  the  philosophical  Strood, 
To  vouchesauf  there  need  is  to  correct 
Of  your  benignities  and  zeales  good. 

The  epithet  here  bestowed  upon  Gower  is  not  perliaps  exactly 
the  one  which  a  poet  would  most  covet;  but  it  has  stuck,  and 
Moral  Gower  is  the  name  by  which  he  has  generally  passed  ever 
since.  "  O  Moral  Gower,  and  Lydgate  laureat,"  exclaims  the 
Scottish  poet  Dunbar,  in  his  Golden  Targe.  "  Moral  Gower^ 
wliose  sententious  dew  adown  reflareth  with  fair  golden  beams," 
says  Hawes  in  his  Pastime  of  Pleasure.  "  And  near  them  sat  old 
Moral  Goo7-e,  witli  ])leasant  pen  in  hand,"  writes  the  author  of  A 
Dialogue  both  pleasant  and  pitiful,  Lon.  1573.^  But  his  pub- 
lisher, Berthelet  the  printer,  is  the  most  severe  of  all;  —  in  the 
dedication  prefixed  to  liis  edition  of  the  Confessio  Amantis,  1532, 
lie  naively  remarks :  "  It  was  not  much  greater  pain  to  that  ex- 
cellent clerk,  the  Moral  John  Gower,  to  compile  the  same  noble 
wark  than  it  was  to  me  to  print  it."  "  No  man,"  he  adds,  allud- 
ing to  the  former  edition  by  Caxton,  in  1483,  "  will  believe  it 
without  conferring  both  the  prints,  the  old  and  mine,  together." 

Gower  is  the  author  of  three  great  poetical  works  (sometimes 
spoken  of  as  one,  though  they  do  not  seem  to  have  had  any  con- 
nection of  plan  or  subject)  :  the  Speculum  Meditantis,  which  is, 

1  Beholden.  ^  Therefore. 

^  Quoted  hy  Mr.  Todd  in  Illustrations,  Introduction,  p.  xxix 


JOHN   GOWER.  331 

or  was,  in  French  ;  the  Vox  Clamantis,  which  is  in  Latin  ;  and 
the  Confessio  Amantis,  which  is  in  Enghsh.  But  the  first,  al- 
though an  account  of  it,  founded  on  a  mistake,  has  been  given  by 
Warton,  has  certainly  not  been  seen  in  modern  times,  and  has  in 
all  probability  perished.  We  have  other  specimens,  however,  of 
Gower's  talents  as  a  French  and  also  as  a  Latin  poet  in  certain 
short  pieces  in  both  these  languages  preserved  in  a  volume  in  the 
Duke  of  Sutherland's  library  at  Trentham  (Staffordshire),  of 
which  an  account  has  been  given  by  Warton  (Hist.  Eng.  Poetry, 
ii.  334—341),  and  another,  more  full,  particular,  and  exact,  by  Mr. 
Todd  (Illustrations,  pp.  93—108).  Speaking  of  Gower's  Latin 
poetry,  Warton  says  that  he  "  copied  Ovid's  elegiacs  with  some 
degree  of  purity,  and  with  fewer  false  quantities  and  corrupt 
phrases  than  any  of  our  countrymen  had  yet  exhibited  since  the 
twelfth  century."  ^  Of  the  French  pieces  in  the  Trentham  vol- 
ume, which  consist  of  fifty  Balades,  or  sonnets,  he  observes, 
*'  They  have  much  real  and  intrinsic  merit.  They  are  tender, 
pathetic,  and  poetical ;  and  place  our  old  poet  Gower  in  a  more 
advantageous  point  of  view  than  that  in  which  he  has  hitherto 
been  usually  seen.  I  know  not  if  any  even  among  the  French 
poets  themselves,  of  this  period,  have  left  a  set  of  more  finished 
sonnets  ;  for  they  were  probably  written  when  Gower  was  a  young 
man,  about  the  year  1350.  Nor  had  yet  any  English  poet  treated 
the  passion  of  love  with  equal  delicacy  of  sentiment,  and  elegance 
of  composition."  2  Four  of  these  French  sonnets  are  given  by 
Warton,  and  more  correctly,  with  the  addition  of  a  fifth,  by 
Todd ;  and  the  entire  contents  of  the  volume  were  edited  for  the 
Roxburghe  Club  in  1818  by  the  present  Duke  of  Sutherland  (then 
Earl  Gower)  under  the  title  of  Balades  and  other  Poems,  by  John 
GoM'er,  printed  from  the  original  MS.,  Latin  and  French ;  Black 
Letter,  4to.  London.  GoAver  was  probably  one  of  the  last  English- 
men who  attempted  the  composition  of  poetry  in  French ;  and  at 
the  end  of  one  of  the  pieces  in  this  volume  he  asks  forgiveness  of 
his  reader  for  any  inaccuracies  he  may  have  committed  in  the 
foreign  idiom,  on  the  ground  of  his  English  birth  and  his  there 
fore  not  being  master  of  the  French  eloquence :  — 

Et  si  ieo  nai  de  Frangois  la  faconde, 
Pardonetz  moi  qe  ieo  de  ceo  forsvoie. 
Ieo  sui  Englois. 

1  Hist.  Eng.  Poet.  ii.  305.  2  mst.Eng.  Poet.  p.  338. 


332  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  Vox  Clamantis  was  edited  for  the  Roxburghe  Chib  m  1850 
by  tlie  Rev.  H.  G.  Coxe.  It  consists  of  seven  Books  in  Latin 
elegiacs.  "  The  greater  bulk  of  the  work,"  says  Dr.  Pauli,  "  the 
date  of  which  its  editor  is  inclined  to  fix  between  1382  and  1384, 
is  rather  a  moral  than  an  historical  essay ;  but  the  First  Book 
describes  the  insurrection  of  Wat  Tyler  in  an  allegorical  disguise  ; 
the  poet  having  a  dream  on  the  11th  of  June  1381,  in  which  men 
assumed  the  shape  of  animals.  The  Second  Book  contains  a  long 
sermon  on  fatalism,  in  which  the  poet  shows  himself  no  friend  to 
Wiclif 's  tenets,  but  a  zealous  advocate  for  the  reformation  of  the 
clergy.  The  Third  Book  points  out  how  all  orders  of  society  must 
suffer  for  their  own  vices  and  demerits ;  in  illustration  of  which  he 
cites  the  example  of  the  secular  clergy.  The  Fourth  Book  is 
dedicated  to  the  cloistered  clergy  and  the  friars,  the  Fifth  to  the 
military ;  the  Sixth  contains  a  violent  attack  on  the  lawyers  ;  and 
the  Seventh  subjoins  the  moral  of  the  whole,  represented  in  Nebu- 
chadnezzar's di'eam,  as  interpreted  by  Daniel."  ^  The  allusion  in 
the  title  seems  to  be  to  St.  John  the  Baptist,  and  to  the  general 
clamor  then  abroad  in  the  country. 

The  Confessio  Amantis  has  been  several  times  printed :  —  by 
Caxton  in  1483,  by  Berthelet  in  1532  and  again  in  1554,  and  by 
Alexander  Chalmers  in  the  second  volume  of  his  English  poets, 
1810 ;  but  all  these  previous  editions  have  been  superseded  by  the 
very  commodious  and  beautiful  one  of  Dr.  Reinhold  Pauli,  in  3 
vols.  8vo.  London,  1857. 

We  Avill  avail  ourselves  of  Dr.  Pauli's  account  of  the  course  in 
which  the  work  proceeds :  —  "  The  poem  opens  by  introducing  the 
author  himself,  in  the  character  of  an  unhappy  lover  in  despair. 
Venus  appears  to  him,  and,  after  having  heard  his  prayer,  appoints 
her  priest  called  Genius,  like  the  mystagogue  in  the  picture  of 
Cebes,  to  hear  the  lover's  confession.  This  is  the  frame  of  the 
whole  work,  which  is  a  singular  mixture  of  classical  notions,  prin- 
cipally borrowed  from  Ovid's  Ars  Amandi,  and  of  the  purely  medi- 
aBval  idea,  that  as  a  good  Catholic  the  unfortunate  lover  must  state 
his  distress  to  a  father  confessor.  This  is  done  with  great  regular- 
ity  and  even  pedantry ;  all  the  passions  of  the  human  heart,  which 
generally  stand  in  the  way  of  love,  being  systematically  arranged 
in  the  various  books  and  subdivisions  of  the  work.  After  Genius 
has  fully  explained  the  evil  affection,  passion,  or  vice  under  con- 

1  Introd.  Essay  to  Confessio  Amantis. 


JOHN    GOWER.  333 

sideration,  the  lover  confesses  on  that  particular  point;  and  fre- 
quently urges  his  boundless  love  for  an  unknown  beauty,  who 
treats  him  cruelly,  in  a  tone  of  affectation  which  would  appear 
highly  ridiculous  in  a  man  of  more  than  sixty  years  of  age,  were 
it  not  a  common  characteristic  of  the  poetry  of  the  period.  After 
this  profession  the  confessor  opposes  him,  and  exemplifies  the  fatal 
effects  of  each  passion  by  a  variety  of  opposite  stories,  gathered 
from  many  sources,  examples  being  then,  as  now,  a  favorite  mode 
of  inculcating  instruction  and  reformation.  At  length,  after  a  fre- 
quent and  tedious  recurrence  of  the  same  process,  the  confession 
is  terminated  by  some  final  injunctions  of  the  priest  —  the  lover's 
petition  in  a  strophic  poem  addressed  to  Venus  —  the  bitter  judg- 
ment of  the  o-oddess,  that  he  should  remember  his  old  ao;e  and 
leave  off  such  fooleries  ....  his  cure  from  the  wound  caused  by 
the  dart  of  love,  and  his  absolution,  received  as  if  by  a  pious 
Roman  Catholic."  ^ 

Such  a  scheme  as  this,  pursued  through  more  than  thirty  thou- 
sand verses,  promises  perhaps  more  edification  than  entertainment ; 
but  the  amount  of  either  that  is  to  be  got  out  of  the  Confessio 
Amantis  is  not  considerable.  Ellis,  after  charitably  declaring  that 
so  long  as  Moral  Gower  keeps  to  his  morality  lie  is  "  wise,  impres- 
sive, and  sometimes  almost  sublime,"  is  compelled  to  add,  "  But 
his  narrative  is  often  quite  petrifying  ;  and  when  we  read  in  his 
work  the  tales  with  which  we  had  been  familiarized  in  the  poems 
of  Ovid,  we  feel  a  mixture  of  surprise  and  despair  at  the  perverse 
industry  employed  in  removing  every  detail  on  which  the  imagina- 
tion had  been  accustomed  to  fasten.  The  author  of  the  Metamor- 
phoses was  a  poet,  and  at  least  sufficiently  fond  of  ornament ; 
Gower  considers  him  as  a  mere  annalist ;  scrupuloiisly  preserves 
his  facts  ;  relates  them  with  great  perspicuity  ;  and  is  fully  satisfied 
when  he  has  extracted  from  them  as  much  morality  as  they  can  be 
reasonably  expected  to  furnish."  ^  In  many  cases  this  must  be 
httle  enough. 

We  shall  confine  our  specimens  of  Gower's  poetry  to  two  short 
passages  from  the  Confessio  Amantis.  The  first  is  the  tale  of  the 
coffers  or  caskets,  in  the  Fifth  Book,  which  has  been  given  by  Todd 
after  a  collation  of  the  printed  editions  with  the  best  manuscripts : ' 

1  Introductory  Essay,  p.  xxxiv. 

2  Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Poets,  i.  179. 
^                          **  Illustrations,  pp.  145-150;  Notes,  pp.  154-158. 


334  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

this  is  the  story,  Avhether  found  by  him  in  Gower  or  elsewhere, 
from  Avhich  Shakspeare  is  supposed  to  liave  taken  the  hint  of  tlie 
incident  of  the  caskets  in  his  Merchant  of  Venice :  — 

In  a  cronique  thus  I  read  : 

About  a  kinge,  as  must  need, 

There  was  of  knijrhtes  and  segniers 

Great  rout  and  eke  of  officers  :  • 

Some  of  long  time  him  hadden  served, 

And  thoughten  that  they  have  deserved 

Avancement,  and  gone  M'ithout ; 

And  some  also  been  of  the  rou*; 

That  comeh  but  a  while  agon. 

And  they  avanced  were  anon. 

There  olde  men  upon  this  thing. 
So  as  they  durst,  again  ^  the  king 
Among  themself  -  complainen  oft : 
But  there  is  nothing  said  so  soft 
That  it  ne  cometh  out  at  last : 
The  king  it  wist,  and  als  ^  so  fast 
As  he  which  was  of  high  prudence  : 
He  shope  *  therefore  an  evidence 
Of  them  that  plainen  in  the  cas,® 
To  know  in  whose  default  it  was  ; 
And  all  within  his  own  intent, 
That  none  may  wiste  what  it  meant. 
Anon  he  let  two  coifers  make 
Of  one  semblance,  and  of  one  make, 
So  lich,''  that  no  life  thilke  thi-ow " 
That  one  may  fro  that  otlier  know : 
They  were  into  his  chamber  brought, 
But  no  man  wot  why  they  be  wrought ; 
And  natheless  ^  the  king  hath  bede  ^ 
That  they  be  set  in  privy  stede,^° 
As  he  that  was  of  wisdom  sly  ; 

When  ^^  he  thereto  his  time  sy,^^ 

1  Against. 

2  Gower,  like  Chancer  and  Laiiuland,  writes  Iicin  for  wliat  we  now  call  tJiern ;  but 
we  have  taken  the  liberty  throiifiliout  of  discarding  tliat  peculiarity. 

'  Also.  *  Contrived.  *  Case. 

®  Like.  '•  No  person  at  an}'  particular  time  1 

*  Nevertheless.  ^  Bidden.  ^'^  Tlace. 

11  (iower,  also,  like  the  other  writers  of  his  time,  has  whan  and  than,  where  we 
BOW  say  trhen  and  thev. 

12  Saw.     The  old  spelling  is  sUh  and  sih. 


JOHN  GOWER.  335 

All  privily,  that  none  it  wist, 
His  owne  hondes  ^  that  one  chest 
Of  fine  gold,  and  of  fine  perie,^ 
The  which  out  of  his  treasury 
Was  take,  anon  he  filled  full ; 
That  other  cofl^er  of  straw  and  mull,' 
With  stones  meynd,^  he  filld  also  : 
Thus  be  they  full  both  two. 

So  that  erlich  ^  upon  a  day 
He  had  within,  where  he  lay, 
There  should  be  to  form  his  bed 
A  board  upset  and  faire  spread  : 
And  then  he  let  the  coffers  fet  ^ 
Upon  the  board,  and  did  them  set. 
He  knew  the  names  well  of  tho 
The  which  again  him  grutched  so,'^ 
Both  of  his  chamber  and  of  his  hall ; 
Anon  and  sente  for  them  all, 
And  saide  to  them  in  this  wise  :  — 

There  shall  no  man  his  hap  ^  despise  : 
I  wot  well  ye  have  longe  served, 
And  God  wot  what  ye  have  deserved ; 
But  if  it  is  along  on  ®  me 
Of  that  ye  unavanced  be, 
Or  elles  if  it  belong  on  yow, 
The  soothe  shall  be  proved  now  : 
To  stoppe  with  your  evil  word, 
Lo  !  here  two  coffers  on  the  board  ; 
Chese  ^°  which  you  list  of  bothe  two, 
And  witteth  ^^  well  that  one  of  tho 
Is  with  tresor  so  full  begon  ^^ 
That,  if  ye  happe  therupon. 
Ye  shall  be  riche  men  for  ever : 
Now  chese  and  take  which  you  is  lever ;  ** 
But  be  ye  well  ware  that  ye  take, 
For  of  that  one  ^^  I  undertake  ^® 

1  Hands.                                   ^  Jewellery.  ^  Rubbish 

«  Mingled.                                 5  Early.  ^  Fetch. 

'  Those  who  against  hira  grudged  (or  grumbled)  so. 

8  Fortune.  ®  Owing  to. 

i"  Choose.  "  Know,  understand  ye 
12  Begun,  used  in  a  general  sense,  nearly  with  the  effect  of  made. 

1^  Is  more  agreeable  to  you.  i*  Tiie  one. 
^^  Promise,  engage,  assure  you. 


836  E^TiLISH   LITERATURE   AXD   LANGUAGE. 

There  is  no  manner  good  therein 
Whereof  ye  migliten  profit  win. 
Now  goth  ^  together  of  one  assent 
And  taketh  your  avisement ; 
For,  l)ut  I  you  this  day  avance, 
It  stant  upon  your  owne  chance, 
All  only  in  default  of  grace  ; 
So  shall  be  showed  in  this  place 
Upon  you  alle  well  afin  - 
That  no  defaulte  shall  be  min. 

They  kneelen  all,  and  with  one  voice 
The  king  they  thonken  of  this  choice  ; 
And  after  that  they  up  arise, 
And  gon  aside  and  them  avise  ; 
And  at  laste  they  accord 
(Whereof  their  tale  to  record 
To  what  issue  they  be  fall) 
A  knight  shall  speake  for  them  all. 
He  kneeleth  down  unto  the  king, 
And  saith  that  they  upon  this  thing, 
Or  for  to  win,  or  for  to  lese,® 
Bean  all  avised  for  to  chese. 

Tho  ^  took  this  knight  a  yerd  on  hond," 
And  goth  there  as  the  coffers  stond, 
And  with  assent  of  everich  one 
He  layeth  his  yerde  upon  one. 
And  saith "  the  king  how  thilke  '  same 
They  chese  in  reguerdon  ^  by  name. 
And  prayeth  him  that  they  might  it  have. 

The  king,  which  wold  his  honour  save, 
When  he  had  heard  the  common  voice, 
Hath  granted  them  their  owne  choice, 
And  took  them  thereupon  the  key. 
And,  for  he  wold  it  were  see  ^ 
What  good  they  have  as  they  suppose, 
He  bade  anon  the  coffer  unclose  — 
Which  was  fulfilled  with  straw  and  stones ! 
Thus  be  they  served  all  at  ones.^" 

The  king  then,  in  the  same  stede," 

*  Go.  2  In  the  end.  a  Lose. 

*  Then.  ^  ^  yard,  or  rod,  in  hand.  <-  Saith  to,  telleth. 
'  This.                  8  In  guerdon,  or  reward.                »  It  were  seen? 

»"  Once.  11  Place. 


JOHN   GOWER.  387 

Anon  thit  other  coffer  undede,^ 
"Whereas  they  sighen  "^  great  richeas, 
"Well  more  than  they  couthen  guess. 

Lo !  saith  the  king,  now  may  ye  see 
That  there  is  no  default  in  me ; 
Forthy  ^  myself  I  wol  acquite, 
And  beareth  ye  your  o^iie  wite  * 
Of  that  fortune  hath  you  refused. 

Thus  was  this  wise  king  excused : 
And  they  left  off  their  evil  speech, 
»        And  mercy  of  their  king  beseech. 

Our  other  extract  we  give  in  the  old  spelling,  as  it  was  con- 
tributed to  the  Pictorial  History  of  England  by  Sir  Henry  Ellis 
from  a  very  eai'ly  MS.  of  the  poem  in  the  Harleian  Collection^ 
No.  3490 :  — 

In  a  Croniq  I  fynde  thus, 

How  that  Caius  Fabricius 

Wich  whilome  was  consul  of  Rome, 

By  whome  the  lawes  yede  and  come,® 

Whan  the  Sampnitees  to  him  brouht 

A  somme  of  golde,  and  hym  by  souht 

To  done  hem  fauoure  in  the  lawe, 

Towarde  the  golde  he  gan  hym  drawe : 

"Whereof,  in  alle  mennes  loke, 

A  parte  in  to  his  honde  he  tooke, 

"Wich  to  his  moutlie  in  alle  haste 

He  put  hit  for  to  smelle  and  taste, 

And  to  his  ihe  and  to  his  ere, 

Bot  he  ne  fonde  no  comfort  there : 

And  thanne  he  be  gan  it  to  despise, 

And  tolde  vnto  hem  in  this  wise  : 

"  1  not  what  is  with  golde  to  thryve, 

AYhan  none  of  alle  my  wittes  fyve 

Fynt  savour  ne  delite  ther  inne  ; 

So  is  it  bot  a  nyce  sinne 

Of  golde  so  ben  to  coveitous. 

Bot  he  is  riche  an  glorious 

"Wich  hath  in  his  subieccion 

The  men  wich  in  possession 

Ben  riche  of  gold,  and  by  this  skille,* 


*  Undia. 

'   Wiicic  they  8uw. 

•    Therefore. 

*  Blame. 

*  Went  and  :;af;,*7. 

For  this  reason. 

VOL.   I. 

43 

8i>8  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

For  he  may  alday  whan  lie  wiUl:, 

Or  be  him  leef  or  be  him  loth, 

Justice  don  vppon  hem  bothe." 

Lo  thus  he  seide,  and  with  that  worJe 

He  threwe  to  fore  hem  on  the  bordo 

The  golde  oute  of  his  honde  mion, 

And  seide  hem  that  he  wolde  none, 

So  that  he  kepte  his  liberte, 

To  do  justice  and  equite, 

Without  lucre  of  such  richesse. 

There  be  nowe  fewe  of  such  I  gesse, 

For  it  was  thilke  tymes  used 

That  eveiy  juge  was  refused, 

Wich  was  not  frende  to  commoun  riht ; 

Bot  thei  that  wolden  stonde  vpriht 

For  trouth  only  to  do  justice 

Preferred  were  in  thilke  office. 

To  deme  and  juge  common  lawe, 

Wich  nowe  men  seyn  is  alle  withdrawe. 

To  set  a  lawe  and  keep  it  nouht 

There  is  no  common  profit  souht, 

But,  above  alle,  natheless, 

The  lawe  wich  is  made  for  pees 

Is  good  to  kepe  for  the  beste, 

For  that  set  alle  men  in  reste. 

The  manuscripts  of  the  Confessio  Amantis  are  very  numerous. 
There  are  no  fewer  than  ten  in  the  Bodleian  Library ;  and  several 
others  are  in  the  British  Museum,  at  Cambridcre,  at  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin,  and  in  private  collections.  Dr.  Pauli's  text,  in  which 
he  has  regulated  the  spelling  in  conformity  to  the  demands  of  the 
verse,  which  he  apparently  assumes  to  have  been  as  regular  as  that 
of  Chaucer  is  held  to  be  by  Tyrwhitt,  is  founded  on  the  printed 
edition  of  1532,  collated  chiefly  with  the  Stafford  MS.,  and  with 
those  in  the  Harleian  Collection  numbered  7184,  3869,  and  3490. 
The  poem  extends  to  eight  Books,  and  is  expressly  stated  by  the 
author  to  have  been  finished  in  the  sixteenth  ye.ar  of  Richard  II., 
that  is,  in  the  year  1393.  It  had  been  bcgim  some  years  befox-e, 
at  the  command  of  that  kmg,  at  a  time  when,  aa  it  seems  to  be 
intimated,  Gower  t^.is  laDonng  under  ill  health,— 

Though  I  sikene",'?  bnv?  upci-  hande, 
And  long  have  haOi  —  • 


BARBOUR.  339 

though  it  is  not  quite  clear  that  these  words  are  not  intended  to 
describe  his  condition  at  the  conchision  of  his  task.  He  particu- 
larly gives  it  as  his  reason  for  choosing  the  vernacular  tongue,  — 

for  that  fewe  men  endite 


In  our  Enoflisshe. 


BARBOUR. 


This  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth  century  is  also  the  age  of  the 
birth  of  Scottish  poetry ;  and  Chaucer  had  in  that  dialect  a  far 
more  worthy  contemporary  and  rival  than  his  friend  and  fellow- 
Englishman  Gower,  in  John  Barbour.  Of  Barbour's  personal 
history  but  little  is  known.  He  was  a  churchman,  and  had  at- 
tained to  the  dignity  of  Archdeacon  of  Aberdeen  by  the  year 
1357  ;  so  that  liis  birth  cannot  well  be  supposed  to  have  been  later 
than  1320.  He  is  styled  Archdeacon  of  Aberdeen  in  a  passport 
granted  to  him  in  that  year  by  Edward  HI.  at  the  request  of  David 
de  Bruce  (that  is,  King  David  H.  of  Scotland),  to  come  into  Eng- 
land with  three  scholars  in  his  company,  for  the  purpose,  as  it  is 
expressed,  of  stiidying  in  the  University  of  Oxford  ;  and  the  pro- 
tection is  extended  to  him  and  his  companions  while  performing 
their  scholastic  exercises,  and  generally  while  remaining  there, 
and  also  while  returning  to  their  own  country.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  an  Archdeacon  should  go  to  college  ;  but  Oxford  ap- 
pears to  have  been  not  the  only  seat  of  learning  to  which  Barbour 
resorted  late  in  life  with  the  same  object.  Three  other  passports, 
or  safe-conducts,  are  extant,  which  were  granted  to  him  by  Edward 
at  later  dates  :  — the  first,  in  13(54,  permitting  him  to  come,  with 
four  horsemen,  from  Scotland,  by  land  or  sea,  into  England,  to 
study  at  Oxford,  or  elsewhere,  as  he  might  think  proper  ;  the 
second,  in  1365,  by  which  he  is  authorized  to  come  into  England, 
and  travel  throughout  that  kingdom,  with  six  horsemen  as  his  com 
panions,  as  far  as  to  St.  Denis  in  France  ;  and  the  third,  in  1368, 
securing  him  protection  in  coming,  with  two  valets  and  two  horses, 
into  England,  and  travelling  through  the  same  to  the  king's  other 
dominions,  on  his  way  to  France  (versus  Franciam')  for  the  purpose 
of  studying  there,  and  in  returning  thence.      Yet  he  had  also  beefi 


340  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

long  before  this  employed,  and  in  a  high  capacity,  in  ci^-il  affairs. 
In  1357  he  was  appointed  by  the  Bishop  of  Aberdeen  one  of  his 
two  Commissioners  deputed  to  attend  a  meeting  at  Edinburgh 
about  the  ransom  of  the  king.  Nothing  more  is  heard  of  him  till 
1373,  in  which  year  he  appears  as  one  of  the  auditors  of  Ex- 
chequer, being  styled  Archdeacon  of  Aberdeen,  and  clerk  of  pro- 
bation (clerico  probacionis')  of  the  royal  household.  In  his  later  days 
he  appears  to  have  been  in  the  receipt  of  two  royal  pensions,  both 
probably  bestowed  upon  him  by  Robert  II.,  who  succeeded  David 
II.  in  1370  ;  the  first  one  of  101.  Scots  from  the  customs  of  Aber- 
deen, the  other  one  of  20s.  from  the  boroifgh  mails^  or  city  rents, 
of  the  same  town.  An  entry  in  the  records  of  Aberdeen  for  1471 
states  on  the  autliority  of  the  original  roll,  now  lost,  that  the  latter 
was  expressly  granted  to  him  "  for  the  compilation  of  the  book  of 
the  Acts  of  King  Robert  the  First."  In  a  passage  occurring  in 
the  latter  part  of  this  work  he  himself  tells  u.=  that  he  was  then 
compiling  it  in  the  year  1375.  All  that  is  further  known  of  him 
is,  that  his  death  took  place  towards  the  close  of  1395.  Besides 
his  poem  commonly  called  The  Bruce,  another  metrical  Avork  of 
his,  entitled  The  Broite  or  The  Brute,  being  a  deduction  of  the 
history  of  the  Scottish  kings  from  Brutus,  is  frequently  referred  to 
by  the  chronicler  Wynton  in  the  next  age  ;  but  no  copy  of  it  is 
now  believed  to  exist.  Of  the  Bruce  only  one  MS.  was  till  lately 
supposed  to  be  extant,  a  transcript  made  in  1489  preserved  in  the 
Advocates'  Library ;  and  it  was  from  this  that  the  last  and  best  edi- 
tion of  the  poem  was  printed  by  Dr.  Jamieson,  in  4to.  at  Edin- 
burgh, in  1820  ;  but  another  MS.,  dated  1488,  has  since  been 
discovered  in  the  Library  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.  It 
appears  to  have  been  printed  before  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. A  "  Patrick  Gordon,  gentleman,"  as  he  designates  himself, 
the  author  of  a  metrical  work  entitled  The  Famous  History  of  the 
Renowned  and  Valiant  Prince,  Robert,  surnamed  the  Bruce,  King 
of  Scotland,  which  first  appeared  at  Dort  in  1615,  alludes  to  Bar- 
bour's previoiis  performance  on  the  same  subject  as  "  the  old  printed 
book  "  ;  and  Mr.  David  Laing,  in  a  note  to  his  edition  of  Dunbar 
(Edinburgh,  1834),  p.  40,  states  that  he  is  possessed  of  an  edition 
of  Barbour's  poem,  in  small  4to.  and  black-letter,  which,  although 
it  has  lost  the  title-page,  appears  to  have  been  printed  at  Edinburgh 
about  the  year  1570.  The  oldest  edition  known  to  Dr.  Jamieson 
was  an  Edinburgh  one  of  1616.     It  was   reprinted   at  the  same 


BARBOUR.  341 

place  in  1620  and  1670  ;  at  Glasgow  in  1672  ;  and  again  at  Edin- 
burgh in  1714  (the  title-page,  however,  being  usually  dated  1758). 
The  first  critical  edition  was  that  by  Pinkerton,  published  in  3  vols. 
8vo.  at  London  in  1790  ;  the  last  and  best,  is  that  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  John  Jamieson,  forming  the  first  volume  of  The  Bruce  and 
Wallace,  2  vols.  4to.  Edinbiu-gh,  1820.  We  may  notice  by  the 
way  that  Gordon,  who  speaks  with  great  contempt  of  Barbour's 
"  outworn  barbarous  speech,"  and  ill-composed  and  immetliodical 
work,  tells  a  story  in  the  Preface  to  his  Famous  History  about  a 
still  older  poem  on  the  exploits  of  Bruce,  written  by  "  a  monk  of 
the  Abbey  of  Melrose,  called  Peter  Fenton^'"  in  the  year  1369,  a 
manuscript  copy  of  which,  "  old  and  torn,  almost  illegible,  in  many 
places  wanting  leaves,"  yet  having  the  beginning,  had  been  put 
into  his  hands  by  his  "  loving  friend,  Donald  Farquharson."  "  It 
was,"  he  says,  "  in  old  rhime  like  to  Chaucer,  but  wanting  in  many 
parts  ;  and  especially  from  the  field  of  Bannockburn  forth  it  wanted 
all  the  rest  almost,  so  that  it  could  not  be  gotten  to  the  press  ;  yet 
such  as  I  could  read  thereof  had  many  remarkable  tales,  worthy 
to  be  noted,  and  also  probable,  agreeing  with  the  truth  of  the  his- 
tory, as  I  have  followed  it,  as  well  as  the  other."  "  One  cannot 
help  regretting,"  Dr.  Jamieson  sensibly  remarks,  "  that  Gordon, 
instead  of  bestowing  his  labor  on  a  new  poem,  had  not  favored  the 
public  with  even  the  fragments  of  that  written  by  Fenton."  It 
would  have  been  something  if  he  had  even  informed  us  what  he 
had  done  with  the  manuscript  (if  he  did  not  put  it  into  the  fir(i 
upon  finding  that  he  could  not  read  it).  He  writes  the  date  (1369^ 
in  words  at  full  length  ;  but  he  is  evidently  not  a  person  upon 
whose  testimony  much  reliance  can  be  placed  as  to  such  a  matter. 
It  is  a  suspicious  circumstance,  as  is  hinted  by  Macpherson,  the 
editor  of  Wynton's  Chronicle,  that  that  writer,  though  he  often 
quotes  Barbour,  has  never  once  mentioned  Fenton.^ 

The  Scotch  in  which  Barbour's  poem  is  written  was  undoubtedly 
the  language  then  commonly  in  use  among  his  countrymen,  for 
whom  he  wrote  and  with  whom  his  poem  has  been  a  popular  favor- 
ite ever  since  its  first  appearance.  By  his  countrymen,  of  course, 
we  mean  the  inhabitants  of  southern  and  eastern,  or  Lowland  Scot- 
land, not  the  Celts  or  Highlanders,  who  have  always  been  and  still 
are  as  entirely  distinct  a  race  as  the  native  Irish  are,  and  always 
have  been,  from  the  English  in  Ireland,  and  to  confound  whom 
1  Wyntown's  Chronicle,  by  Macpherson  (1795),  Pref.  j.  xxix. 


842  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

either  in  language  or  in  any  other  respect  with  the  Scottish  Low- 
landers  is  the  same  sort  of  mistake  that  it  would  be  to  speak  of  the 
English  as  being  either  in  language  or  lineage  identical  with  the 
Welsh.  Indeed,  there  is  a  remarkable  similarity  as  to  this  matter 
in  the  circumstances  of  the  three  countries  :  in  each  a  primitive 
Celtic  population,  which  appears  to  have  foi'merly  occupied  the 
whole  soil,  has  been  partially  expelled  by  another  race,  but  still 
exists,  inhabiting  its  separate  locality  (in  all  the  three  cases  the 
maritime  and  mountainous  wilds  of  the  west),  and  retaining  its 
own  ancient  and  perfectly  distinct  language.  The  expulsion  has 
been  the  most  sweeping  in  England,  where  it  took  place  first,  and 
where  the  Welsh  form  now  only  about  a  sixteenth  of  the  general 
population ;  it  has  been  carried  to  a  less  extent  in  Scotland,  where 
it  was  not  effected  till  a  later  age,  and  where  the  numbers  of  the 
Highlanders  are  still  to  those  of  the  Lowlanders  in  the  proportion 
of  one  to  five  or  six  ;  in  Ireland,  where  it  happened  last  of  all,  the 
new  settlers  have  scai'cely  yet  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  foreigners 
and  intruders,  and  the  ancient  Celtic  inhabitants,  still  covering, 
although  not  possessing,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  soil,  the 
larger  proportion  of  them,  however,  having  relinquished  their  an- 
cestral speech,  continue  to  be  perhaps  six  or  eight  times  as  numer- 
ous as  the  Saxons  or  English.  For  in  all  the  three  cases  it  is  the 
same  Saxon,  or  at  least  Teutonic,  race  before  which  the  Celts  have 
retired  or  given  way  :  the  Welsh,  the  Scottish  Highlanders,  and 
the  native  Irish,  indeed,  all  to  this  day  alike  designate  the  stranger 
Avho  has  set  himself  down  beside  them  by  the  common  epithet  of 
the  Saxon.  We  know  that  other  Teutonic  or  northern  races  were 
mixed  with  the  Angles  and  Saxons  in  all  the  three  cases :  not  only 
were  the  English,  who  settled  in  Scotland  in  great  numbers,  and 
conquered  Ireland,  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  in  part 
French  Normans,  but  the  original  Normans  or  Danes  had  in  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries  effected  extensive  settlements  in  each 
of  the  three  countries.  Besides,  the  original  English  were  them- 
selves a  mixed  people ;  and  those  of  them  who  were  distinctively 
Saxons  were  even  the  old  hereditary  enemies  of  the  Danes.  Still, 
as  the  Saxons,  Angles,  and  Jutes  were  as  one  people  against  the 
Scandinavian  Danes,  or  their  descendants  the  French  Normans,  so 
even  Saxons  and  Danes,  or  Normans,  were  united  everywhere 
against  the  Celts.  As  for  the  language  spoken  by  the  Lowland 
Scots  in  the  time  of  Barbour,  it  nmst  have  sprung  out  of  tlie  same 


BARBOUR.  313 

sources,  and  been  affected  by  nearly  the  same  influences,  with  the 
English  of  the  same  age.  Nobody  now  holds  that  any  part  of  it 
can  have  been  derived  from  the  Picts,  who  indeed  originally  occu- 
pied part  of  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland,  but  who  were  certainly  not 
a  Teutonic  but  a  Celtic  people.  Lothian,  or  all  the  eastern  part 
of  Scotland  to  the  south  of  the  Forth,  was  English  from  the  seventh 
century,  as  much  as  was  Northumberland  or  Yorkshire  :  from  this 
date  the  only  difference  that  could  have  distinguished  the  language 
there  used  from  that  spoken  in  the  south  of  England  was  probably 
a  larger  infusion  of  the  Danish  forms  ;  but  this  characteristic  must 
have  been  shared  in  nearly  the  same  degree  by  all  the  English  then 
spoken  to  the  north  of  the  Thames.  Again,  whatever  effect  may 
have  been  produced  by  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  the  events  con- 
sequent upon  that  revolution,  would  probably  be  pretty  equally 
diffused  over  the  two  countries.  In  the  twelfth  and  thuteenth 
centuries  both  the  Normans  themselves  and  their  literature  appear 
to  have  acquired  almost  the  same  establishment  and  ascendency  in 
Scotland  as  in  England.  We  have  seen  that  French  was  the  lan- 
guage of  the  court  in  the  one  country  as  well  as  in  the  other,  and 
that  Scottish  as  well  as  English  writers  figure  among  the  imitators 
of  the  Norman  trouveurs  and  romance  poets.  Afterwards  the  con- 
nection of  Scotland  with  France  became  much  more  intimate  and 
uninterrupted  than  that  of  England  ;  and  this  appears  to  have 
affected  the  Scottish  dialect  in  a  way  which  will  be  presently 
noticed.  But  in  Barbour's  day,  the  language  of  Teutonic  Scot- 
land was  distinguished  from  that  of  the  south  of  England  (which 
had  now  acquired  the  ascendency  over  that  of  the  northern  coun- 
ties as  the  literary  dialect)  by  little  more  than  the  retention,  per- 
haps, of  a  good  many  vocables  which  had  become  obsolete  among 
the  English,  and  a  generally  broader  enunciation  of  the  vowel 
sounds.  Hence  Barbour  never  supposes  that  he  is  writing  in  any 
other  language  than  English  any  more  than  Chaucer ;  that  is  the 
name  by  which  not  only  he,  but  his  successors  Dunbar  and  even 
Lyndsay,  always  designate  their  native  tongue  :  down  to  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  by  the  term  Scotch  was  generally 
understood  what  is  now  called  the  Gaelic^  or  the  Erse  or  JSrsh 
(that  is,  Irish),  the  speech  of  the  Celts  or  Highlanders.  Divested 
of  the  grotesque  and  cumbrous  spelling  of  the  old  manuscripts,  the 
language  of  Barbour  is  quite  as  intelligible  at  the  present  day  to 
an  English  reader  as  that  of   Chaucer  :    the  obsolete  words  and 


344  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

forms  are  not  more  numerous  in  the  one  writer  than  in  the  othor, 
though  some  that  are  used  by  Barbour  may  not  be  found  in  Chau- 
cer, as  many  of  Chaucer's  are  not  in  Barbour ;  the  chief  general 
distinction,  as  we  liave  said,  is  the  greater  breadth  given  to  the 
vowel  sounds  in  the  dialect  of  the  Scottish  poet.  The  old  termina- 
tion of  the  present  participle  in  and  is  also  more  frequently  used 
than  in  Chaucer,  to  whom  however  it  is  not  unknown,  any  more 
than  its  modern  substitute  ing  is  to  Barbour.  The  most  remarka- 
ble peculiarity  of  the  more  recent  form  of  the  Scottish  dialect  that 
is  not  found  in  Barbour  is  the  abstraction  of  the  final  I  from  sylla- 
bles ending  in  that  consonant  preceded  by  a  vowel  or  diphthong : 
thus  he  never  has  a\  fa\  fvC  or  /om',  fow^  Tiow^  for  all,  fall,  full, 
foil,  hole,  &c.  The  subsequent  introduction  of  tliis  habit  into  the 
speech  of  the  Scotch  is  perhaps  to  be  attributed  to  their  imitation 
of  the  liquefaction  of  the  I  in  similar  circumstances  by  the  French, 
from  whom  they  have  also  borrowed  a  considerable  number  of  their 
modern  vocables,  never  used  in  England,  and  to  whose  accentua- 
tion, both  of  individual  words  and  of  sentences,  theirs  has  much 
general  resemblance,  throwing  the  emphasis,  contrary,  as  ab'eady 
noticed,  to  the  tendency  of  the  English  language,  upon  one  of  the 
latter  syllables,  and  also  running  into  the  rising  in  many  cases 
where  the  English  use  the  falUno-  intonation. 

The  Bruce  is  a  very  long  poem,  comprising  between  twelve  and 
thirteen  thousand  lines,  in  octosyllabic  metre,  which  the  two  last 
editors  have  distributed,  Pinkerton  into  twenty,  Jamieson  into 
fourteen.  Books.  It  relates  the  history  of  Scotland,  and  especially 
the  fortunes  of  the  great  Bruce,  from  the  death  of  Alexander  III. 
in  1286,  or,  rather,  from  the  competition  for  the  crown,  and  the 
announcement  of  the  claims  of  Edward  I.  as  lord  paramount,  on 
that  of  his  daughter,  Margaret  the  Maiden  of  Norway,  in  1290  — 
the  events  of  the  first  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  however,  before 
Bruce  comes  upon  the  stage,  being  very  succinctly  given  —  to  the 
death  of  Bruce  (Robert  I.)  in  1329,  and  that  of  his  constant  asso- 
ciate and  brother  of  chivalry,  Lord  James  Douglas,  the  bearer  of 
the  king's  heart  to  the  Holy  Land,  in  the  year  following.  The 
12,500  verses,  or  thereby,  may  be  said  therefore  to  comprehend 
the  events  of  about  twenty-five  years  ;  and  Barbour,  though  he 
calls  his  work  a  "  romaunt,"  as  being  a  narrative  poem,  professes 
to  relate  nothing  but  what  he  believed  to  be  the  truth,  so  that 
he  is  to  be  regarded  not  only  as  the  earliest  poet  but  also  as  tte 


BARBOUR.  345 

earliest  historian  of  his  country.  Fordun,  indeed,  M'as  his  contem- 
porary, but  the  Latin  chronicle  of  that  writer  A^as  probably  not 
published  till  many  years  after  his  death.  And  to  a  great  extent 
Barbour's  work  is  and  has  always  been  regarded  as  being  an 
authentic  historical  monument ;  it  has  no  doubt  some  incidents  or 
embellishments  which  may  be  set  down  as  fabulous ;  but  these  are 
in  general  very  easily  distinguished  from  the  main  texture  of  the 
narrative,  which  agrees  substantially  with  the  most  trustworthy 
accounts  draAvn  from  other  sources,  and  has  been  received  and 
quoted  as  good  evidence  by  all  subsequent  writers  and  investigators 
of  Scottish  history,  from  Andrew  of  Wynton  to  Lord  Hailes  inclu- 
sive. This  is  Barboiir's  own  introduction  of  himself  to  his  readers ; 
and  the  passage,  besides  explaining  the  design  of  his  work,  affords 
a  fair  example  of  the  worthy  archdeacon's  manly  bearing,  and  for- 
cible and  cordial  style  :  — 

Stories  to  read  are  dehtable, 
Suppose  tliat  they  be  nought  but  fable  ; 
Then  ^  suld  ^  stories  that  suthfast  ^  were, 
An  they  war  ^  said  on  gud  ^  manere, 
Have  double  pleasance  in  hearing. 
The  first  pleasance  is  the  carping ;  ® 
And  the  tother  the  suthfastness, 
That  shaws  ^  the  thing  right  as  it  wes  ;  ® 
And  such  thinges  that  are  likand  ® 
Till  mannes  hearing  are  pleasand. 
Therefore  I  wald  ^°  fain  set  my  will, 
Gif  ^^  my  wit  might  suffice  theretill, 
To  put  in  writ  a  suthfast  story, 
That  it  lest  ^■^  aye  furth  in  memory, 
Swa  ^^  that  na  ^^  time  of  length  it  let,^^ 
Ne  ger  ^^  it  hally  ^'  be  foryet.^* 
For  auld  ^^  stories,  that  men  reads, 
Represents  to  them  the  deeds 

1  Barbour's  word,  like  Chaucer's,  is  than.  2  Should. 

^  True.  *  If  they  were. 

*  Good.     It  may  perhaps  be  doubted  if  the  u  here,  and  in  other  cases,  was  yet 
oronounced  like  the  Frtnch  !(. 

^  The  narrative,  the  story.            "^  Sliows.  ^  Was. 

^  Agreeable.                                   w  Would.  "  If. 
^2  Last.                                              13  go  (probably  pronounced  sway). 

^*  No.                                               16  Hinder,  stop.  i^  Nor  cause. 

"  Wholly.                                         18  Forgotten.  w  Old. 
VOL.  I.                                            44 


846  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Of  stalwHi-t  folk,  that  livit  are,i 
Right  as  they  then  in  presence  ware.^ 
And  certes  they  suld  weil  have  prize 
That  in  their  time  were  wight  ^  and  wise ; 
And  led  their  life  in  great  travail, 
And  oft,  in  hard  stour  ^  of  betail, 
Wan  right  great  price  of  chivahy 
And  war  voidit  of  cowardy  ;  ® 
As  wes  King  Robert  of  Scotland, 
That  hardy  wes  of  heart  and  hand  ; 
And  gud  Schir  James  of  Douglas, 
That  in  his  time  sa  worthy  was, 
That  of  his  price  and  his  bounty 
In  fer  landes  renownit  was  he. 
Of  them  I  think  this  book  to  may  :  ® 
Now  God  give  grace  that  I  may  swa 
Treat  it,  and  bring  it  till  ending. 
That  I  say  nought  but  suthfast  thing. 

Some  of  the  grammatical  forms  here,  it  may  be  observed,  are 
even  more  modern  than  those  we  find  in  the  Enghsh  poetry  of  the 
same  ao^e  ;  in  particular,  Barbour  uses  our  present  they,  them,  and 
their  (or  in  the  old  spelling,  thai,  tliaim,  and  thar'),  where  Chaucer 
aud  his  countrymen  still  adhere  to  the  Saxon  hey,  or  hi,  hem,  and 
Mr  or  her.  This  may  serve,  with  other  considerations,  to  refute 
tlie  notion  taken  up  by  some  modern  writers,  that  Barbour  is  an 
imitator  of  Chaucer  :  the  Bruce,  in  fact,  is  an  earlier  poem  than 
the  Canterbury  Tales,  and,  as  it  was  written  by  Barbour  in  his  old 
age,  the  probability  is,  that  the  Scottish  ])oet  was  absolutely  the 
p]-edecessor  of  the  English  ;  but  at  any  rate  there  is  no  more  reason 
to  believe  that  he  imitated  Chaucer  than  that  Chaucer  imitated  him. 
The  one  is  never  mentioned  or  alluded  to  by  the  other,  and  there 
is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  they  were  even  acquainted  with 
each  other's  works.  From  his  habits  of  locomotion,  and  frequent 
journeys  to  England,  a  suspicion  might  arise  that  Barbour  intended 
to  write  in  the  language  of  that  country  ;  but  such  a  supposition  is 
negatived  by  the  dialectic  peculiarities  which,  notwithstanding  a 
general   resemblance   in   other   respects,  still  distinguish  his  stylf 

I  Lived  early,  formerly.  2  Were.  ^  Valiant. 

*  Peril.     Was  the  ou  yet  pronounced  as  in  French  f 

6  Voided   or  void,  of  cowardice.  ®  Make. 


BARBOUR.  347 

from  that  of  his  English  contemporaries.  Tha*"  his  language,  we 
may  add,  has  not  been  modernized  by  the  cranscriber  upon 
whom  we  are  dependent  for  the  present  text  is,  to  a  great  extent, 
j)roved  by  several  considerable  passages  of  tno  poem  which  are 
quoted  by  Wynton  being  found  with  scarcely  any  variation  in  the 
work  of  that  chronicler,  of  which  we  have  one  manuscript  believed 
to  be  of  as  early  a  date  as  the  year  1430  at  the  latest,  or  within 
little  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  from  the  time  when  Bar- 
bour hved.  Besides,  his  language,  as  we  have  it,  does  not  differ 
from  that  of  Wynton,  who  was  his  contemporary,  although  he  was 
born  perhaps  thirty  years  later,  and  although  he  appears  not  to 
have  composed  his  chronicle  till  after  the  commence. ijeixt  of  tb^  fif- 
teenth century. 

Barbour  is  far  from  being  a  poet  equal  to  Ch/ucer  ;  but  there 
is  no  other  English  poet  down  to  a  century  and  a  half  after  their 
day  who  can  be  placed  by  the  side  of  the  one  any  more  than  of  the 
other.  He  has  neither  Chaucer's  delicate  feeling  of  the  beautiful, 
nor  his  grand  inventive  imagination,  nor  his  wit  or  humor  ;  but  in 
mere  narrative  and  description  he  is,  with  his  clear,  strong,  direct 
diction,  in  a  liigh  degree  both  animated  and  picturesque,  and  Ids 
poem  is  ])erva(led  by  a  glow  of  generous  sentiment,  well  befitting 
its  subject,  and  lending  grace  as  well  as  additional  force  to  the 
ardent,  bounding  spirit  of  life  with  which  it  is  instinct  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  The  following  passage,  which  occurs  near  the  com- 
mencement, has  been  often  quoted  (at  least  in  part) ;  but  it  is  too 
remarkable  to  be  omitted  in  any  exemplification  of  the  characteristics 
of  Barbour's  poetry.  He  is  describing  the  oppressions  endured 
by  the  Scots  during  the  occupation  of  their  country  by  the  EnglisV 
king,  Edward  L,  after  his  deposition  of  his  puppet  Baliol :  — 

And  gif  that  ony  man  tliem  by 
Had  ony  thing  that  wes  worthy, 
As  horse,  or  hund,  or  other  thing, 
That  war  pleasand  to  their  hking  ! 
With  right  or  wrang  it  wald  have  they. 
And  gif  ony  wald  them  withsay, 
They  suld  swa  do,  that  they  suld  tine  ^ 
'ther  -^  land  or  life,  or  live  in  pine. 
For  they  dempt  ^  them  efter  their  will, 

1  Lose.  2  Either.  s  Doomed,  judged 


348  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Takand  na  kepe  ^  to  right  na  skill.*^ 
Ah  !  what  they  dempt  them  felonly  ! ' 
For  gud  kiiightes  that  war  worthy, 
For  httle  enchesoun  *  or  then  ^  nane 
They  hangit  be  the  neckbane. 
Als  ®  that  folk,  that  ever  was  free, 
And  in  freedom  wont  for  to  be, 
Through  their  great  mischance  and  folly, 
Wor  treated  then  sa  wickedly. 
That  their  faes''  their  judges  ware  : 
Wliat  wretchedness  may  man  have  mair?' 

Ah  !  Freedom  is  a  noble  thing  ! 
Freedom  mays  ^  man  to  have  liking  ;  ^** 
Freedom  all  solace  to  man  gives  : 
He  lives  at  ease  that  freely  lives  ! 
A  noble  heart  may  have  nane  ease, 
Ne  elles  nought  that  may  him  please 
Giff  freedom  failye  :  for  free  liking 
Is  yai'nit  ^^  ower  ^^  all  other  thing. 
Na  he  that  aye  has  livit  free 
May  nought  knaw  well  the  property,^' 
The  anger,  na  the  wretched  doom. 
That  is  couplit  ^*  to  foul  thirldoom.^^ 
But  gif  he  had  assayit  it, 
Then  all  perquer  ^^  he  suld  it  wit ; 
And  suld  think  freedom  mair  to  prise 
Than  all  the  gold  in  warld  that  is. 

It  is,  he  goes  on  to  observe,  by  its  contrary,  or  opposite,  that  the 
true  nature  of  everything  is  best  discovered :  —  the  value  and  bless- 
ing of  freedom,  for  example,  are  only  to  be  fully  felt  in  slavery ;  and 
then  the  worthy  archdeacon,  who,  although  the  humorous  is  not 
liis  strongest  ground,  does  not  want  slyness  or  a  sense  of  the  comic, 
winds  up  with  a  very  singular  illustration,  which,  however,  is  more 
suited  to  his  own  age  than  to  ours,  and  may  be  suppressed  here 
without  injury  to  the  argument. 

1  Taking  no  heed,  paying  no  regard.  "^  Reason. 

*  Ah  !  how  cruelly  they  judged  them !  *  Cause. 

*  Both  tlie  sense  and  the  metre  seem  to  require  that  this  then  (in  orig.  than)  sliould 
be  transferred  to  the  next  line ;  "  they  hangit  then." 

•*  Also,  thus.  ■'  Foes.  ^  More. 

"*  Makes.  i°  Pleasure.  '^  Yearned  for,  desired 

^^  Over,  above.  i^  The  quality,  the  peculiar  state  or  condition  ? 

'*  Coupled,  attached.  i**  Thraldom.  ^''  Exactly. 


BAKBUUR.  '  S49 

But  Barbour's  design,  no  doubt,  was  to  effect  by  means  of  this 
light  and  sportive  conclusion  an  easy  and  harmonious  descent  from 
the  height  of  declamation  and  passion  to  which  he  had  been  carried 
in  the  preceding  lines.  Throughout  his  long  work  he  shows,  for 
his  time,  a  very  remarkable  feeling  of  the  art  of  poetry,  both  by 
the  variety  which  he  studies  in  the  disposition  and  treatment  of  his 
subject,  and  by  the  rare  temperance  and  self-restraint  which  pre- 
vents him  from  ever  overdoing  wdiat  he  is  about  either  by  prosing 
or  raving.  Even  his  patriotism,  w^arm  and  steady  as  it  is,  is  wholly 
without  any  vulgar  narrowness  or  ferocity :  he  paints  the  injuries 
of  his  country  with  distinctness  and  force,  and  celebrates  the  hero- 
ism of  her  champions  and  deliverers  with  all  admiration  and  sym- 
pathy ;  but  he  never  runs  into  either  the  gasconading  exaggerations 
or  the  furious  depreciatory  invectives  which  would,  it  might  be 
thought,  have  better  pleased  the  generality  of  those  for  whom  he 
wrote.  His  understandino;  was  too  enlightened,  and  his  heart  too 
large,  for  that.  His  poem  stands  in  this  respect  in  striking  con- 
trast to  that  of  Harry,  the  blind  minstrel,  on  the  exploits  of  Wal- 
lace, to  be  afterwards  noticed ;  but  each  poet  suited  his  hero,  — 
Barbour,  the  magnanimous,  considerate,  and  flir-seeing  king ;  Blind 
Harry,  the  indomitable  popular  champion,  with  his  one  passion  and 
principle,  hatred  of  the  domination  of  England,  occupying  his 
whole  soul  and  being;. 

We  will  now  give  one  of  Barbour's  portraits  —  that  of  Sir  James 
of  Douglas,  the  second  figure  in  his  canvas :  — 

All  men  lovit  him  for  his  bounty  !  ^ 
For  he  was  of  full  fiiir  effer,^ 
"Wise,  courtais,  and  deboner  ; 
Large  and  lovand  als  was  ha, 
And  ower  all  thing  lovit  lawty.^ 
Lawty  to  love  is  greatumly  ;  * 
Through  lawty  lives  men  righteously 
With  a*  virtue  and  lawty 
A  man  may  yet  sufRciand  be  : 
And  but  ®  lawty  may  nane  have  price, 
Whether  ha  be  wiglit,  or  he  be  wise 

^  Goodness  of  nature  and  disposition. 

"^  Appearance,  or  rather,  perhaps,  demeanor,  bearing 

^  Loyalty.  *  Great,  magnanimOM  ♦ 

^  One.     The  reading  seems  doubtful.  ''  Witliout. 


3^00  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

For  where  it  failies  na  virtue 
May  be  of  price,  na  of  value, 
To  mak  a  man  sa  gud  that  he 
May  simply  callit  gud  man  be. 

He  was  in  all  his  deedes  leal ;  * 
For  him  dedeigned  "^  nought  to  deal 
With  treachery  ;  na  with  falset :  ' 
His  heart  on  high  honour  was  set  ; 
And  him  conteinit  *  on  sic  manere 
That  all  him  lovit  that  were  him  near. 
But  he  wes  nought  so  fmr  that  we 
Suld  speak  greatly  of  his  beauty  : 
In  visage  wes  he  some  deal  grey, 
And  had  black  hair,  as  Ic  ^  heard  say  ; 
But  of  limmes  he  Aves  weil  made, 
With  banes  great,  and  shuldres  braid. 
His  body  was  well  made  and  leanie,^ 
As  they  that  saw  him  said  to  me. 
When  he  was  blythe'^  he  was  lovely, 
And  meek  and  sweet  in  company ; 
But  wha  in  battle  might  him  see 
All  other  countenance  had  he. 
And  in  speek  ^  lispit  he  some  deal ; 
But  that  sat  him  right  wonder  weil. 
Till  gud  Ector  of  Troy  might  he 
In  mony  thinges  likent  be. 
Ector  had  black  liair,  as  he  had ; 
And  stark  limmes.  and  right  weil  made  ; 
And  lispit  alsua  ®  as  did  he  ; 
And  wes  fidfillit  of  leauty  ; 
And  was  curtais,  and  Avise,  and  wight. 
But  of  manhcid  and  niickle  might 
Till  Ector  dar  I  nane  compare 
Of  all  that  ever  in  Avarldes  v^^are. 
The  whether,^*'  in  his  time  sa  wrought  he 
That  he  suld  greatly  lovit  be. 

The  only  other  passage  for  which  we  can  make  room  is  a  short 
»;xtract  from  the  narrative  of  the  great  day  of  Bannockburn,  wliich 

^  Loyal,  true,  faitliful.  '^  Me  deigned  (it  deignt'd  him). 

'  Falseliood.  *  Cotitaiiied,  lield  liim  in?  ''  I. 

^  These  three  words  seem  not  to  be  in  the  MS.,  and  the  last  of  tl.eni  at  least  may 
be  doubled  "  Cheerful,  in  good  spirits. 

^  Speech  •*  Also.  '"  Howev*  r. 


BARBOUR. 


361 


occupies  altogether  about  2000  lines  of  the  poem,  or  the  whole  of 
the  eighth  and  ninth  Books  of  Dr.  Jamieson's  edition :  — 


There  might  men  see  men  felly  fight ; 
And  men  that  worthy  war  and  wight 
Do  mony  worthy  vassalage.^ 
They  faught  as  they  war  in  a  rage  ; 
For,  when  the  Scottia  archery 
Saw  their  fayes  ^  sa  sturdily 
Stand  in  to  battle  them  again,^ 
With  all  their  might  and  all  their  main 
They  laid  on  as  men  out  of  wit ; 
And  where  they  with  full  strak  *  might  hit 
There  might  na  armour  stint  their  sti-ak. 
They  to-frushit  ^  that  they  might  ower-tak  ; ' 
And  with  axes  sic  dushes '  gave, 
That  they  helmes  and  heades  clave. 
And  their  fayes  right  hardily 
Met  them,  and  dang  on  them  doughtily 
With  wapins  ^  that  were  styth  ®  of  steel : 
There  was  the  battle  strekit  ^°  well. 
Sa  great  din  there  wes  of  dints, 
As  wapins  upon  armour  stints  ;  ^^ 
And  of  speares  sa  great  bresting ;  ^^ 
And  sic  thrang,  and  sic  thristing  ;  ^^ 
Sic  girning  -^^  graning,^^  and  sa  great 
A  noise  as  they  gan  other  beat; 
And  ensenies  ^^  on  every  side  ; 
Givand  and  takand  woundes  wide  ; 
That  it  was  hideous  for  to  hear. 
All  their  four  battles  Avith  that  were 
Fechtand  ^'  in  a  front  halily.^^ 
Ah  !  mighty  God,  how  doughtily 
Schir  Edward  the  Bruce  and  his  men 
Amang  their  fais  conteinit  them  ^'  then  ! 
Fechtand  in  sa  gud  covine,^" 
Sa  haidy,  worthy,  and  sa  fine, 


*  Acts  of  valiant  service. 

*  Stroke. 

^  Whatever  they  might  overtake 
9  Strong. 

1-  Breaking. 

1^  Groaning. 

'"  Wholly.     Fighting  all  at  once  front  to  front  ? 

^'^  Maintained  themselves.  '^'^  Combination  (covenant) 


2  Foes. 

^  Quite  broke  in  pieces. 

"i  Such  blows. 
1"  Struck,  foughten. 
18  Thrusting. 
1^  War-cries. 


8  Against. 

^  Weapons. 
11  Rest,  strike. 
1*  Grinning. 
I''  Fighting 


852  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE, 

That  their  vaward  rushit  was, 

And  maugre  theires,  left  the  place;* 

And,  till  their  great  rout,^  to  warrand  ' 

They  went,  that  tane  had  upon  hand* 

Sa  great  annoy  that  they  war  efFrayit 

For  Seottis,  that  them  hard  arrayit, 

That  than  war  in  a  schiltrum  ^  all. 

Wha  happent  into  that  fight  to  fall, 

I  trow  again  he  suld  nought  rise. 

There  men  might  see  on  mony  wise 
»  Hardiments  ®  eschevit ''  doughtily  ; 

i  And  mony,  that  wight  war  and  hardy, 

Soon  lyand  under  feet  all  dead. 

Where  all  the  field  of  blud  was  red. 

Armes  and  whites  ^  that  they  bare 

With  blud  war  sa  defoulit  there. 

That  they  might  not  descroyit  be.' 

Ah,  mighty  God !  wha  then  might  see 

That  Stewart,  Walter,  and  his  rout. 

And  the  gud  Douglas,  that  was  sa  stout, 

Fechtand  into  that  stalwart  stour,^'* 

He  suld  say  "  that  till  all  honour 

They  war  worthy,  that  in  that  fight 

Sa  fast  prcssit  their  fiiyes  might. 

That  them  rushit  whar  they  yede.^^ 

There  men  might  see  mony  a  steed 

Fleand  on  stray,^'  that  lord  had  nane. 

Ah  Lord  !  wha  then  gud  tent  had  tane^* 

TiU  the  gud  Earl  of  Murrave  " 

And  his,  that  sa  great  routes  gave, 

And  fauglit  sa  fast  in  that  betail, 

Tholand  ^'^  sic  paines  and  travail, 

That  they  and  theirs  made  sic  debat 

That  where  they  come  they  made  them  gat ; " 

'  The  meaning  evitlently  is,  that  tlie  van  of  tlie  English  was  broken,  and  left  it« 
ground,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  its  own  side  to  support  it. 

-  To  their  great  confusion.  "*  A  place  of  shelter  or  refuge. 

*  Who  had  received  ? 

*  Supposed  to  mean  a  body  of  troops  drawn  up  in  a  round  form. 

^  Hardy  deeds.  '  Achieved.  ^  Coats  of  white  woollen. 

"  Described.  i**  Fighting  in  that  strong  tumult  of  battle. 

'^  He  would  say.  i^  That  drove  them  back  wherever  they  went. 

^'*  Flying  astray,  at  large.  ^*  Good  heed  had  taken. 

'*  Murray.  i®  Sustaining. 

"'  Get?     But  the  word  is  perhaps  wrong.     Dr.  Jamieson,  whose  pointing  ft* 


EARLY   ENGLISH   PROSE  353 

Then  might  men  hear  enseignies  ^  cry, 

And  Scottis  men  cry  hardily, 

On  them  !    On  them  !    On  them !    They  fail  j 

With  that  sa  hard  they  gan  assail, 

And  slew  all  that  they  might  ower  ta  ;  "^ 

And  the  Scottis  archers  alsua  ^ 

Shot  amang  them  sa  deliverly,* 

Engrievand  them  sa  greatumly,^ 

That,  what  for  them  that  with  them  faught, 

That  swa  great  routes  to  them  raught,^ 

And  pressit  them  full  eagerly  ; 

And  what  for  arrows  that  felly 

Mony  great  woundes  gan  them  ma,'^ 

And  slew  fast  of  their  horse  alsua. 

That  they  wandyst  *  a  little  wey  ; 

They  dread  sa  greatly  then  to  dey® 

That  their  covine  was  wer  and  wer ;  ^® 

For  they  that  fechtand  with  them  wer 

Set  hardiment,  and  strength,  and  will, 

And  heart,  and  courage  als,  theretill ! 

And  all  their  main,  and  all  their  might, 

To  put  them  fully  to  the  flight. 

This,  it  must  be  allowed,  if  not  quite  a  Homeric  strain,  is  stren- 
uous and  valiant  wa*iting  for  a  Scottish  archdeacon,  advanced  in 
years,  of  the  fourteenth  century. 


COMPOUND    ENGLISH    PROSE.  —  MANDEVIL.  —  TREVISA.  — 
WICLIF.  —  CHAUCER. 

To  the  fourteenth  century  belong  the  earliest  specimens  of  prose 
composition  in  our  present  mixed  English  that  have  been  preserved. 

quently  shows  that  he  did  not  understand  the  text,  affords  us  no  light  or  assistance 
in  any  of  its  difficulties  by  the  miserable  glossary  which  he  has  appended  to  liis 
edition. 

1  Dr.  Jamieson's  only  interpretation  of  the  terra  is  ivord  of  ivar.  Here  at  least 
t  seems  rather  to  mean  ensigns  or  standard-hearers,  who  raised  the  war-cry. 

'^  Overtake.  ^  Also. 

*  Nimblj",  dexterously  (our  modern  cleverly).        ^  Distressing  them  so  greatly. 
^  It  should  probably  b?  tvraughl  (wrought).  ''  Make. 

*  Recoil  for  fear.  ^  Die. 
1°  That  their  combination  was  worse  and  worse. 

VOL.  I.  45 


354  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Amono;  Sir  Henry  Ellis's  contributions  to  the  Pictorial  History  of 
England  are  two  very  curious  extracts  fi'om  the  Arundel  MS.,  No. 
57,  in  the  British  Museum,  entitled  Ayenbyte  of  Inwyt,  exempli- 
fying the  dialect  of  Kent  in  1340.  At  the  beginning  of  the  MS. 
is  this  inscription :  — "  This  boc  is  dan  Michelis  of  Northgate, 
ywrite  an  Englis  of  his  ozene  hand  ;  and  is  of  the  bochouse  of 
Saynt  Austine's  of  Canterberi  imder  the  letters  CC."  The  first 
of  the  passages  (which  occurs  on  folio  48)  is  as  follows  :  — 

The  yonge  grihound  thet  is  yet  al  novis  that  yernth  after  eche  beste 
that  yenith  bevore  him,  and  ne  maketh  bote  him  weri  and  his  time  lyese. 
Ther  of  zet  Ysopes  the  fable  of  the  little  hounde  and  of  the  lesse.  The 
bond  at  eche  time  that  he  yherth  his  Ihord  cometh  hom,  he  yernth  to  yens 
hjm.  and  Ihartb  about  his  zwere,  and  the  Ihord  him  maketh  uayre  chiere 
and  him  froteth,  and  maker  him  greate  feste.  The  asse  him  be  thozte 
thous  ssolde  ich  do,  and  zuo  wolde  mi  Ihord  me  louie.  beterre  he  ssolde  me 
make  joye  thet  ich  send  eche  daye  thanne  thise  honnde  thet  him  serueth 
of  nazt.  Hit  nes  naz  longe  efterward  thet  the  asse  ne  yzez  his  Ihord 
come  bom,  he  beginth  to  Iheap  and  yernth  to  yens  him,  and  him  prauth 
the  uet  aboute  his  zuere  and  beginth  zinge  grauntliche.  The  sergons  thet 
hit  y  zeze  nome  steues  and  byete  than  asse  rizt  to  the  nolle,  and  ther  of 
thet  he  wende  habbe  wortbssipe  and  guod  he  hedde  ssame  and  harm. 

The  other  passage  (which  occurs  on  folio  82,  and  which  gives 
the  date  of  the  manuscri])t)  comprises  the  Kentish  version  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  Ave  Maria,  and  Creed,  after  an  introductory  para- 
graph, which,  it  will  be  observed,  although  written  as  prose,  is 
really  in  rhyme  :  — 

Nou  iche  wille  that  ye  yAvryte  hou  hit  is  y  went :  tliet  this  boc  is  ywrite 
mid  Engliss  of  Kent.  This  boc  is  ymad  nor  lewede  men,  vor  uader  and 
uor  moder  and  uor  other  ken  ham  uor  to  berze  uram  alle  manycre  zen 
that  ine  hare  in  wytte  ne  bleue  ne  iioul  wen.  Huo  ase  God  is  his  name 
yred  thet  this  boc  made  God  him  yeue  thet  bread  of  angles  of  heuene 
and  ther  to  his  red  and  onderuonge  his  zaule  luianne  thet  he  is  dyad. 
Amen. 

Ymende  thet  this  boc  is  uolueld  ine  the  eue  of  the  holy  apostles  S}Tnon 
and  Judas  of  ane  brother  of  the  cloystre  of  Sauynt  Austin  of  Caunter- 
beri  ine  the  yeare  of  our  Ihordes  beringe,  L340. 

Pater  Noster.  —  Vader  oure  thet  art  ine  heuenes  y  halzed  by  tbi  name, 
cominde  thi  riche,  y  worthe  thi  wil  ase  in  heuene  ine  erthe,  bread  oure 
eche  dayes  yef  ous  to  day,  and  uor  let  ous  oure  yeldinges  ase  and  we 
iiorleteth  oure  yelderes,  and  ne  ous  led  nazt  in  to  uondinge,  ac  vii  ous 
uram  queade.     zo  by  Int. 


MANDEVIL.  356 

Ave  Maria.  —  Hayl  Marie  of  tlionke  uol.  H .  .  dby  mid  the,  yblisseil 
thou  ine  wymmen,  and  yblissed  thet  ouet  of  thine  wombe.     zuo  by  hit. 

Credo.  —  Ich  leue  ine  God  uader  almizti,  makere  of  heuene  and  of 
erthe,  and  ine  Jesu  Crist  his  zone  onlepi  our  Ihord,  that  ykend  is  of  tho 
holy  Gost,  ybore  of  Marie  mayde,  ypyned  under  Pontis  Pilate,  ynayled  a 
rode,  dyade  and  be  bered,  yede  down  to  helle,  thane  thridde  day  aros  urani 
the  dyade,  steaz  to  heuenes,  zit  athe  rizt  half  of  God  the  uader  almizti. 
thannes  to  comene  he  is  to  deme  the  quike  and  the  dyade.  Ich  yleue  ine 
the  holy  Gost,  holy  cherche  generalliche,  menesse  of  halzen,  lesnesse  of 
zennes,  of  ulesse  arizinge,  and  lyf  eurelestinde.     zuo  by  hit. 

The  sound  here  represented  by  z  in  certaui  words,  such  a.> 
almizti,  it  should  be  noticed,  is  really  a  guttural,  the  same  which 
at  a  later  date  came  to  be  usually  indicated  by  gh.  In  fact  the 
character  is  a  g,  or  something  between  a  g  and  a  y,  and  not  at  all 
our  modern  z. 

Sir  Henry  adds  that  the  Haideian  MS.,  No.  1022,  contains  sev- 
eral tracts  in  Northern  English,  of  nearly  the  same  age ;  among 
which  is  a  poem  on  the  Decalogue,  translated  from  the  Latin  in 
1357,  at  the  request  of  Archbishop  Horesley,  by  John  de  Taystoke, 
a  monk  of  St.  Mary's,  York.  '•'■■  The  reader,"  it  is  further  stated, 
"  who  is  inquisitive  as  to  dialects  will  find  among  the  Harleian 
manuscripts  one,  No.  221,  which  contains  a  Dictionary  in  English 
and  Latin,  the  former  language  in  the  dialect  of  the  East  Country, 
compiled  ninety  years  later  by  a  friar  preacher,  a  recluse  at  Lynne 
in  Norfolk." 

Our  oldest  Mixed  English  prose  author  is  Sir  John  Mandevil, 
whose  Voyages  and  Travels,  a  singular  repertory  of  the  marvel- 
lous legends  of  the  Middle  Ages,  have  been  often  printed.  The 
best  editions  are  that  published  in  8vo.,  at  London,  in  1725,  and 
the  reprint  of  it  in  the  same  form  in  1839,  "  with  an  introduction, 
additional  notes,  and  a  glossary,  by  J.  O.  Halliwell,  Esq.,  F.S.A., 
F.R.A.S."  The  author's  own  account  of  himself  and  of  his  book 
is  given  in  an  introductory  address,  or  Prologue  :  — 

And.  for  als  moch  as  it  is  long  time  passed  that  there  was  no  general 
passage  ne  vyage  over  the  sea,  and  many  men  desiren  for  to  hear  speak  o'f 
the  Holy  Lond,  and  han  ^  thereof  great  solace  and  comfort,  I,  John  Maun 
Seville,  knight,  all  be  it  I  be  not  worthy,  that  was  bom  in  Englond,  in  the 
town  of  Saint  Albons,  passed  the  sea  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  Jesu  Christ 
1322,  in  the  day  of  Saint  Michel ;  and  hider-to  have  ben  -  longtime  over 
1  Have.  ^  Been. 


856  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND    LANGUAGE. 

the  sea,  and  have  seen  and  gone  thorough  many  divers  londs,  and  nany 
provinces,  and  kingdoms,  and  isles,  and  have  passed  thorough  Tartary 
Persie,  Ermonie  ^  the  Little  and  the  Great ;  thorough  Libye,  Chaldee,  and 
a  great  part  ot"  Ethiop  ;  thorough  Amazoyn,  Ind  the  Lass  and  the  More,  a 
"reat  party ;  and  tliorough  out  many  other  isles,  that  ben  abouten  Ind  ; 
'Avhere  dwellen  many  divers  folks,  and  of  divers  manners  and  laws,  and  of 
divers  shapps  of  men.  Of  which  londs  and  isles  I  shall  speak  more 
plainly  hereafter.  And  I  shall  devise  you  some  party  of  things  that 
there  ben,-  whan  time  shall  ben  after  it  may  best  come  to  my  mind ; 
and  specially  for  hem  ^  that  will  *,  and  are  in  purpose  for  to  visit  the 
Holy  City  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  holy  places  that  are  thereabout  And 
I  shall  tell  the  way  that  they  should  holden  thider.  For  I  have  often 
times  passed  and  ridden  the  way,  with  good  company  of  many  lords,  God 
be  thonked. 

And  ye  shuU  understond  that  1  have  put  this  book  out  of  Latin  into 
French,  and  translated  it  agen  out  of  French  into  English,  that  eveiy 
man  of  my  nation  may  understond  it.  But  lords  and  knights,  and  other 
noble  and  worthy  men,  that  con  ^  Latin  but  little,  and  ban  ben  beyond 
the  sea,  knowen  and  understonden  gif  I  err  in  devising,  for  forgetting  or 
else  ;  that  they  mowe  ®  redress  it  and  amend  it.  For  things  passed  out, 
of  long  time,  from  a  man's  mind,  or  from  his  sight,  turnen  soon  into  for- 
getting; because  that  mind  of  man  ne  may  not  ben  comprehended  ne 
withholden  for  the  freelty  of  mankind. 

Mandevil  is  said  to  have  returned  to  England  in  1356,  or  after 
an  absence  of  thirty-four  years ;  and,  as  he  is  recorded  to  have 
died  at  Liege  in  1371,  his  book  must  have  been  written  early  in 
the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Of  the  many  copies  of 
it  which  exist  in  manuscript,  some  are  as  old  as  the  close  of  that 
century ;  so  that  the  language  may  be  presumed  to  have  been 
preserved  nearly  as  he  wrote  it.  Divested  of  the  old  spelling,  it 
will  be  seen  fi'om  the  above  specimen  to  be  still  very  readily  intel- 
lijlible  ;  indeed  it  is  remarkable  for  its  clearness  and  correctness. 
Our  other  extracts,  however,  shall  be  given  with  the  spelling  of 
the  time,  as  exhibited  in  the  Cottonian  MS.  Titus  c.  xvi.,  w^hich  is 
believed  to  have  been  written  about  the  year  1400.  The  fol- 
lowing is  the  Seventh  Chapter,  entitled  Of  the  Pilgrimages  in 
Jerusalem,  and  of  the  Holy  Places  thereaboute,  as  contributed 
ifter  that  MS.  to  the  P'ctorial  History  of  England  by  Sir  Henry 
Ellin. 

1  Armenia.  2  Be.  »  Them  ('em). 

«  Wish.  &  Know.  ^  May. 


MANDEVIL.  357 

After  for  to  speke  of  Jerusalem  the  holy  cytee,  zee  schull  undirstonde 
that  it  stont  full  faire  b<'-twene  hilles.  and  there  be  no  ryveres  ne  welles 
but  watar  cometh  by  condyle  from  Ebron.  And  zee  schuUe  understonde 
that  Jerusalem  of  olde  tyme,  unto  the  tyme  of  Melchisedech,  was  cleped 
Jebus  :  and  after  it  was  clept  Salem,  unto  the  tyme  of  Kyng  David,  that 
put  these  two  names  to  gider,  and  cleped  it  Jebusalem.  And  after  that 
Kyng  Salomon  cleped  it  Jerosolomye.  And  after  that  men  cleped  it 
Jerusalem,  and  so  it  is  cleped  zit.  And  aboute  Jerusalem  is  the  kyngdom 
of  Surrye.^  And  there  besyde,  is  the  lond  of  Palestyne.  And  besyde 
it  is  Ascalon.  And  besyde  that  is  the  lond  of  Maritaiiie.  But  Jerusalem 
is  in  the  lond  of  Judee ;  and  it  is  clept  Jude,  for  that  Judas  Machabeus 
was  kyng  of  that  contree.  And  it  marcheth  estward  to  the  kyngdom  of 
Arabye  ;  on  the  south  syde  to  the  lond  of  Egipt ;  and  on  the  west  syde 
to  the  grete  see.  On  the  north  syde  toward  the  kyngdom  of  Surrye,  and 
to  the  see  of  Cypre. 

In  Jerusalem  was  wont  to  be  a  Patriark  and  Erchebysshopes,  and 
Bisshoppes  abouten  in  the  contree.  Abowte  Jerusalem  be  theise  cytees  ; 
Ebron  at  seven  myle,  Jerico  at  six  myle,  Bersabee  at  eyght  myle,  Ascalon 
at  xvii  myle,  Jaff  at  xvi  myle,  Ramatha  at  iij  myle,  and  Bethleem  at  ij 
myle.  And  a  ij  myle  from  Bethleem  toward  the  southe  is  the  dliirche  of 
Seynt  Karitot  that  was  abbot  there,  for  whom  thei  maiden  meche  doel 
amongs  the  monks  whan  he  scholde  dye,  and  zit  be  in-moornynge  in  the 
wise  that  thei  maden  her  ^  lamentacon  for  him  the  first  tyme,  and  it  is 
full  gret  pytee  to  beholde.  This  contree  and  lond  of  Jerusalem  hath  ben 
in  many  dyverse  nacones  hondes.  And  often  therfbre  hath  the  contree 
sufFred  meche  tribulacion  for  the  synne  of  the  people  that  duelle  ther :  for 
that  contree  hath  be  in  the  bonds  of  all  nacyonns :  that  is  to  seyne  of 
Jewes,  of  Chananees,  Assiryenes,  Perses,  Medoynes,  Macedoynes,  of 
Grekes,  Roiuaynes,  of  Cristenemen,  of  Sarrazines,  Barbaryenes,  Turkes, 
Tailaryenes,  and  of  manye  othere  dyverse  nacyons.  For  God  Avole  not 
that  it  be  longe  in  the  bonds  of  traytours  ne  of  synneres,  be  thei  cristene 
or  other.  And  now  have  the  hethene  men  holden  that  lond  in  her  bonds 
xl  zer  and  more.     But  thei  schull  not  holde  it  longe  zif  God  wold. 

And  zee  schull  undirstonde  that  whan  men  comen  to  Jerusalem  her  first 
pilgrymage  is  to  the  chirche  of  the  Holy  Sepulcr  wher  oure  Lord  was 
buryed,  that  is  with  oute  the  cytee  on  the  north  syde.  But  it  is  now  en- 
closed in  with  the  ton  wall.  And  there  is  a  full  fair  chirche  all  rownd, 
and  open  above,  and  covered  with  leed.  And  on  the  west  syde  is  a  fair 
tour  and  an  hieh  for  belles  strongly  made.  And  in  the  myddes  of  the 
I'hirche  is  a  tabernacle  as  itwer  a  lytyll  nows,  made  witn  a  low  lityll  dore ; 
and  that  tabernacle  is  made  in  maner  of  a  hi; If  a  compas  right  curiousely 
"nd  richely  made  of  gold  and  azure  and  othere  riche  coloures.  full 
'  Syria.  ^  Dolor,  sorrow  (Sc.  dule).  ^  Tji-ir. 


358  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

iioDelyche  made.  And  in  the  ryght  side  of  that  tabernacle  is  the  sepulci^e 
of  oure  Lord.  And  the  tabernacle  is  viij  fote  long  and  v  fote  wyde,  and 
xj  fote  in  heghte.  And  it  is  not  longe  sithe  the  sepulcre  was  all  open, 
that  men  mvghte  kisse  it  and  touche  it.  But  for  pilgrymes  that  comen 
thider  peyned  hem  to  breke  the  ston  in  peces,  or  in  poudr  ;  therefore  the 
Soudan  ^  hath  do  make  a  wall  aboute  the  sepulcr  that  noman  may  towche 
it.  But  in  the  left  syde  of  the  wall  of  the  tabernacle  is  well  the  heighte 
of  a  man,  is  a  gi'et  ston,  to  the  quantytee  of  a  mannes  hed,  that  was  of  the 
holy  sepulcr,  and  that  ston  kissen  the  pilgrymes  that  comen  thider.  In 
that  tabernacle  ben  no  wyndowes,  but  it  is  all  made  light  with  lampes  that 
hangen  befor  the  sepulcr.  And  there  is  a  lampe  that  hongeth  before  the 
sepulcr  that  brenneth  light,  and  on  the  Gode  firyday  it  goth  out  be  him 
self,  at  that  hour  that  our  Loi'd  roos  fro  deth  to  lyve.  Also  within  the 
chirche  at  the  right  syde  besyde  the  queer  of  the  churche  is  the  Mount  of 
Calvarye,  wher  our  Lord  was  don  on  the  cros.  And  it  is  a  roche  of  white 
colour,  and  a  l}i;ill  medled  with  red.  And  the  cros  was  set  in  a  morteys 
in  the  same  roche,  and  on  that  roche  dropped  the  woundes  of  our  Lord, 
whan  he  was  pyned  on  the  cros,  and  that  is  cleped  Golgatha.  And  men 
gon  up  to  that  Golgatha  be  degrees.-  And  in  the  place  of  that  morteys 
was  Adamps  hed  found  after  Noes  flode,  in  tokene  that  the  synnes  of 
Adam  scholde  ben  bought  in  that  same  place.  And  upon  that  roche  made 
Abraham  sacrifise  to  our  Lord.  And  tliere  is  an  Awter,  and  before  that 
Awtier  lyzn  Godefray  de  Boleyne,  and  Bawdewyn,  and  othere  cristene 
Kyngs  of  Jeinisalem.  And  ther  nygh  wher  our  Lord  was  crucyfied  is  this 
writen  in  Greew,^  Otheos  basilion  ysmon  psionns  ergasa,  sothias  emesotis 
yye,^  that  is  to  seyne  in  Latyn, '  Hie  Deus  noster  Rex,  ante  secula,  operatus 
est  salutem  in  medio  terre  ; '  that  is  to  seye  '  This  God  oure  Kyng,  before 
the  worldes,  hath  wrought  hele  in  mydds  of  the  Erthe.'  And  also  on  that 
roche  where  the  cros  was  sett,  is  writen  with  in  the  roche  these  wordes, 
Cyos  myst  ys  basis  toupisfeos  they  ihesmofy^  that  is  to  sayne  in  Latyn, 
'  Quod  vides  est  fundamentum  tocius  fidei  Mundi  hujus  ; '  that  is  to  seye, 
'  That  thou  seest  is  ground  of  all  the  world  and  of  this  feyth.'  And  zee 
schuU  vndirstonde  that  whan  oure  Lord  was  don  upon  the  cros,  he  was 
xxxiij  zer  and  iij  monethes  of  elde.  And  the  prophecy e  of  David  sayth 
that,  '  Quadraginta  annis  proximus  fui  generacioni  huic  ; '  that  is  to  seye, 
'  Forty  zeer  was  I  neighbore  to  this  kynrede.'  And  thus  scholde  it  seme 
that  the  prophecyes  ne  wor  not  trewe,  but  thei  ben  bothe  trewe  :  for  in  old 
tyme  men  maden  o  zeer  of  x  monethes,  of  the  whiche  March  was  the 
firste  and  DL-cembr  was  the  last.    But  Gayus  that  was  Emperour  of  Rome 

1  Sultan.  2  Steps.  ^  Greek. 

^  Li  the  printed  editions  the  Greek  is  b  ^ebq  ^aaikevq  tjiiuv  itpb  aiuvuv  elpyaaarc 
iUTj/piav  tv  jUf'<7(.;  r?/f  y/yf . 
^  In  the  printed  editions,  o  eldei^,  earl  i3uaic  rnc  nlareuc  oh]^  Toii  kogjiov  tovtov. 


MANDEVIL.  359 

putten  theise  ij  moneths  there  to  Janyuer  and  Feverer,  and  ordeyned  the 
zeer  of  xij  monethes,  that  is  to  seye  ccc.lxv  dayes,  without  leep  zeer,  after 
the  propre  cours  of  the  Sonne.  And  therefore  after  cowntynge  of  x 
monethes  of  the  zeer,  he  dyede  in  the  xl  zeer  as  the  prophete  seyde  :  and 
after  the  zeer  of  xij  monethes  he  was  of  age  xxxiij  zeer  and  iij  monethes. 
Also  within  the  Mount  of  Calvarie,  on  the  right  side,  is  an  Awter,  wher 
the  piler  lyzth  that  oure  lord  Jhesu  was  boundeu  to  whan  he  was  scourged  ; 
and  there  besyde  iiij  fote,  ben  iiij  pilers  of  ston  that  allweys  droppen  water. 
And  snmme  seyn  that  thei  wcpen  for  our  Lordes  deth.  And  nygh  that 
awtier  is  a  place  under  erthe  xlij  degrees  of  depnesse,  wher  the  only  croya 
was  founden  by  the  wytt  of  Seynte  Elyne,  under  a  roche  wher  ther  Jewes 
had  hidde  it.  And  that  was  the  verray  croys  assayed.  For  thei  founden 
iij  crosses,  on  of  our  Lord,  and  ij  of  the  ij  thefes.  And  Seynte  Elyne 
preved  hem  on  a  ded  body  that  aros  from  deth  to  lyve,  whan  that  it  was 
leyd  on  it  that  our  Lord  dyed  on.  And  there  by  in  the  wall  is  the  place 
wlier  the  iiij  nayles  of  our  Lord  were  liidd,  for  he  had  ij  in  his  bonds, 
and  ij  in  his  feet :  and  of  on  of  theise  the  Emperour  of  Constantynople 
made  a  brydill  to  his  hors,  to  ber  him  in  bataylle,  and  thorgh  vertue  there 
of  he  overcam  his  enemyes,  add  wan  all  the  lond  of  Asye  the  lesse,  that 
is  to  seye  Turkye,  Ermonye  the  lasse  and  the  more,  and  from  Suri-ye  to 
Jerusalem,  from  Arabye  to  Persie,  from  Mesojjotayme  to  the  kingdom  of 
Halappe,^  from  Egypte  the  highe  and  the  lowe,  and  all  the  othere  kyng- 
domes  unto  the  depe  of  Ethiope,  and  in  to  Ynde  the  lesse  that  thanne 
was  cristerne.  And  there  was  in  that  tyme  many  gode  holy  men  and  holy 
Heremytes  of  whom  the  book  of  Fadres  lyfes  speketh  and  thei  ben  now 
in  paynemes  and  Sarazines  bonds.  And  in  mydds  of  that  chirche  is  a 
compas,  in  the  whiche  Joseph  of  Aramathie  leyde  the  body  of  our  Lord 
whan  he  had  taken  him  down  of  the  croys,  and  Aver  he  wassched  the 
wounds  of  our  Lord.  And  that  compas,  sey  men  is  the  mydds  of  the 
world.  And  in  the  chirche  of  the  Sepulchre  on  the  north  syde  is  the 
place  wher  oure  Lord  was  put  in  preson.  For  he  was  in  preson  in  many 
places.  And  ther  is  a  partye  of  the  cheyne  that  he  was  bounden  with. 
And  ther  he  appered  first  to  Marie  Magdaleyne,  whan  lie  was  rysen,  and 
sche  wende  "^  that  he  had  ben  a  gardener.  In  the  chirche  of  Seynt 
Sepulcr  was  wont  to  be  chanons  of  the  ordr  of  Seynt  Augustyn,  and  had- 
den  a  Priour,  but  the  Patriark  was  her  sovereyn.  And  with  oute  the 
doi'es  of  the  chirche,  on  the  right  syde  as  men  gone  upward  xviij  greces,* 
seyd  our  Lord  to  his  moder,  '  Mulier,  ecce  Jilms  t.uus'  that  is  to  seye, 
'  Woman,  lo  thi  sone.'  And  after  that  he  seyde  to  John  his  disciple, 
' Ecce  Mater  tua'  that  is  to  seyne,  '  Lo  behold  thi  moder.'  And  theise 
words  he  seyde  on  the  cros.  And  on  theise  greces  went  our  Lord  whan 
he  bar  the  cross  on  his  schulder.  And  under  this  grees  is  a  chapell  and 
'  Aleppo.  2  Weened,  thought.  ^  Steps. 


360  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

in  that  chapell  syngen  prestes,  Yndyenes,^  that  is  to  seye  prests  of  YndC; 
noght  after  oure  law,  but  after  her,  and  al  wey  thei  maken  her  sacrement 
of  the  awtier,  seyenge  Pater  noster  and  othere  prayeres  there  with.  "With 
the  whiche  preyeres  thei  seye  the  words  that  the  sacrement  is  made  of. 
For  thei  ne  knowe  not  the  addicions  that  many  Popes  han  made,  but  thei 
Bynge  with  gode  devocion.  And  there  ner  is  the  place  where  that  oure 
Lord  rested  him  whan  he  was  Xvery  for  berynge  of  the  cros.  And  zee 
schull  understonde  that  before/ the  chirche  of  the  Sepulcre  is  the  cytee 
more  feble  than  in  ony  other  partie,  for  the  grete  playn  that  is  betwene 
the  chirche  and  the  citee.  And  toward  the  est  syde,  with  oute  the  wallea 
of  the  cytee,  is  the  Vale  of  .Josaphath,  that  toucheth  to  the  walles  as 
though  it  wer  a  large  dych.  And  above  that  Vale  of  Josaphath  out  of 
the  cytee  is  the  chirche  of  Seynt  Stevene  wher  he  was  stoned  to  deth. 
And  there  beside  is  the  gildene  ^  zate  that  may  not  be  opened,  be  the 
which  zate  our  Lord  entred  on  Palmesonday  upon  an  asse,  and  the  zate 
opened  azenst  him  whan  he  wolde  go  unto  the  Temple.  And  zit  apperen 
the  steppes  of  the  asses  feet  in  iij  places  of  the  degrees  that  ben  of  full 
harde  ston.  And  before  the  chirche  of  Seynt  Sepulcr  toward  the  south,  a 
cc  paas  is  the  gret  Hospitall  of  Seynt  John,  of  the  whiche  the  Hospitleres 
hadd  here  foundacion.  And  with  inne  the  Palays  of  the  seke  men  of  that 
Hospitall  be  sixe  score  and  iiij  pileres  of  ston.  And  in  the  Avalles  of  the 
hows,  with  oute  the  nombre  aboveseyd,  there  be  liiij  pileres  that  beren  up 
the  hows.  And  fro  that  Hospitall  to  go  toward  the  est  is  a  full  fayr 
chii'che  that  is  clept  Notre  Dame  la  graund.  And  than  is  there  another 
chirche  right  nygh  that  is  clept  Notre  Dame  de  Latyne.  And  there  were 
Marie  Cleophes  and  Marie  Magdaleyne  and  teren  here  heer,^  whan  our 
Lord  was  peyned  in  the  cros. 

The  following  is  the  account  of  Mahomet  in  the  fourteenth 
chapter. 

And  zee  schull  vnderstonde  that  Machamete  was  born  in  Arabye,  that 
was  first  a  pore  knaue  that  kept  cameles  that  wenten  with  marchantes  for 
marchandise,  and  so  befell  that  he  wente  with  the  marchandes  in  to  Egipt, 
and  thei  were  thanne  cristene  in  tho  *  partyes.  And  at  the  desartes  of 
Arabye  he  wente  in  to  a  cliiii)ell  wlier  a  Eremyte  duelte.  And  whan  he 
entred  in  to  the  chapell,  tliat  was  but  a  lytill  and  a  low  thing,  and  had  but 
a  lityl  dor'  and  a  low,  than  the  entree  began  to  wexe  so  gret  and  so  large, 
and  so  high,  as  thougli  it  hud  be  of  a  gret  mynstr,  or  the  zate  of  a  paleys. 
And  this  was  the  first  myracle  tlie  Sarazins  seyn  that  Machomete  dide  in 
his  y.o\\\\\Q.  After  began  he  for  to  wexe  wyse  and  riche  ;  and  he  was  p 
^ret  Astj-onomer ;  and,  after,  he  was  goiiernour  and  prince  of  the  lond  of 

^  Indians.  2  Gilded. 

"  Tore  their  hair.  *  Those. 


MANDEVIL.  361 

Corroflane,  and  he  gouerned  it  full  wisely,  in  such  manere,  that  whan  the 
Prince  was  ded,  he  toke  the  lady  to  wyfe  that  highte  ^  Gadrige.  Ana 
Machomete  fell  often  in  the  grete  sikeness  that  men  calle  the  fallynge 
euyll.  Wherfore  the  lady  was  full  sory  that  euere  sche  toke  him  to  hus- 
bonde.  But  Machomete  made  hii*e  to  beleeue  that  all  tymes  when  he  fell 
so,  Gabriel  the  angel  cam  for  to  speke  with  him,  and  for  the  grete  light 
and  brightnesse  of  the  angell,  he  myghte  not  susteyne  him  fro  fallynge. 
And  therefore  the  Sarazines  seyn  that  Gabriel  cam  often  to  speke  with 
him.  This  Machomete  regned  in  Arabye,  the  zeer  of  our  Lord  Jhesu 
Crist  sixe  hundred  and  ten,  and  was  of  the  generacion  of  Ysmael,  that 
was  Abrahames  sone  that  he  gat  upon  Agar  his  chamberer  ;  ^  and  there- 
fore ther  be  Sarazines  that  be  clept  Ismaelytenes ;  and  surae  Agarzenes, 
of  Agar,  and  the  othere  propurly  be  clept  Sarrazines  of  Sarra  ;  and  summe 
be  clept  Moabytes,  and  summe  Amonytes,  for  the  two  sones  of  Loth,  Moab 
and  Amon,  that  he  begatt  on  his  daughtres,  that  were  aftirward  grete 
erthely  princes.  And  also  Machomete  loued  wel  a  gode  heremyte  that 
duelled  in  the  desertes,  a  myle  from  Mount  Synay  in  the  weye  that  men 
gon  fro  Arabye  toward  Caldee,  and  toward  Ynde,  o  ^  day  ioi-ney  fro  the 
See  wher  the  Marchaunts  of  Venyse  comen  often  for  merchandize.  And 
so  often  wente  Machomete  to  this  heremyte  that  all  his  men  were  wrothe, 
for  he  wolde  gladly  here  this  heremyte  preche,  and  make  his  men  wake  all 
nyght ;  and  therefore  his  men  thoughten  to  putte  the  heremyte  to  deth  ; 
and  so  befell  vpon  a  nyght  that  Machomete  was  dronken  of  god  wyn  and 
he  fell  on  slepe,  and  his  men  toke  Machomete's  swerd  out  of  his  schethe, 
whils  he  slepte,  and  there  with  thei  slowgh  this  heremyte  and  putte  his 
swerd  al  blody  in  his  schethe  azen.  And  at  morwe  whan  he  found  the 
heremeyte  ded,  he  was  fully  sory  and  wa-oth,  and  wolde  haue  don  his  men 
to  deth,  but  thei  all  with  on  accord  [said]  that  he  him  self  had  slayn  him 
whan  he  was  dronken  and  schewed  him  his  swerd  all  blody,  and  he  trowed 
that  thei  hadden  seyd  soth.*  And  than  he  cursed  the  wyn,  and  all  tho 
that  drynken  it.  And  therefore  Sarrazines  that  be  deuout  drynken  neuer 
no  wyn,  but  sum  drynkon  it  priuyly,  for  zif  thei  dronken  it  openly  thei 
scholde  ben  reproued.  But  thei  drynken  gode  beuerage,  and  swete  and 
noryfshynge,  that  is  made  of  Galamell,  and  that  is  that  men  maken  sugr' 
of  that  is  of  right  gode  sauor,  and  it  is  gode  for  the  breest.  Also  it  be 
falleth  sumtyme  that  cristene  men  become  Sarazines  outher  for  pouertee 
or  for  sympleness,  or  elles  for  her  owne  wykkedness.  And  therefore  the 
Archiflamyn  or  the  Flamyn,  os  ^  our  Echebisshopp  or  Bisshopp,  whan  he 
resceyueth  hem  seyth  thus :  La  ellec  olla  syla  Machomet  rores  alia,  that  is 
to  seye,  "  There  is  no  God  but  on  and  Machomete  his  messager." 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  quote  a  short  passage  fron: 

1  Was  called.  ^  Chambermaid.  ^  One.  *  Sooth,  true.         ^  As. 

VOL.  I.  46 


362  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

John  de  Trevisa's  translation  of  Higden's  Polychronicon,  in  speaK 
ing  of  the  new  mode  of  teaching  Latin  in  schools,  through  the 
medium  of  English  instead  of  French,  which  Trevisa  tells  us  had 
been  introduced  shortly  before  the  time  at  which  he  was  then 
writing,  which  was  the  year  1385.  His  translation  of  Higden, 
which  was  undertaken  at  the  request  of  Thomas  Lord  Berkeley, 
to  whom  he  was  chaplain,  is  stated  at  the  end  to  have  been  finished 
in  1387.  It  was  printed  by  Caxton  in  1482,  with  a  continuatior 
bringing  down  the  narrative  from  1357,  at  which  Higden  had 
stopped,  to  1460  ;  but,  besides  that  Trevisa's  text  is  extensively 
altered  m  tins  edition  both  by  insertions  and  omissions,  his  language 
is  modernized  throughout.  "  I,  William  Caxton,  a  simple  person," 
says  the  worthy  printer,  in  his  Preface,  "  have  endeavoured  me  tc 
writ  first  over  all  the  said  book  of  Polychronicon,  and  somewhat 
have  changed  the  rude  and  old  English,  that  is  to  wit,  certain 
words  which  in  these  days  be  neither  used  ne  understood."  Yet 
not  more  than  the  ordinary  span  of  a  single  human  life  had  elapsed 
since  the  translation  had  been  executed  by  Trevisa,  no  doubt  in 
the  current  English  of  his  day  ;  such  was  the  rapid  growth  of  the 
language  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  fifteenth  century.  Besides  the 
Polychronicon,  Trevisa  I'endered  several  other  works  from  the 
Latin  into  his  mother-tongue ;  and  some  of  his  other  translations 
are  still  preserved  in  manuscript.  Of  a  version  of  the  whole  of 
both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  however,  which  he  is  said  to 
have  executed,  nothing  is  now  known. 

The  oldest  English  translation  we  have  of  the  Bible  is  that  of 
Wiclif.  John  de  Wiclif,  or  Wycliffe,  died  at  about  the  age  of 
sixty  in  1384,  and  his  translation  of  the  Scriptures  from  the  Vul- 
gate appears  to  have  been  finished  two  or  three  years  before.  The 
Kew  Testament  has  been  several  times  printed  :  first  in  folio  in 
1731  under  the  care  of  the  Rev.  John  Lewis;  next  in  4to.  in  1810 
under  that  of  the  Rev.  H.  H.  Baber ;  lastly  in  4to.  in  1841,  and 
again  in  1846,  in  Bagster's  Enghsli  Hexapla.  And  now  the  Old 
Testament  has  also  been  given  to  the  world  from  the  Clarendon 
press,  at  the  expense  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  admirably  edited 
by  the  Rev.  J.  Forshall  and  Sir  Frederick  Madden,  in  four  magnifi- 
cent quartos,  Oxford,  1850.  The  following  extracts  from  Wiclif 's 
Bible  were  communicated  to  the  Pictorial  History  of  England  by 
Sir  Heniy  Ellis  from  one  of  the  best  manuscrijits  of  the  entire 
ti-anslation,  the  Royal  MS.  1  C.  viii.  in  the  British  Museum.     The 


WICLIF  363 

first,  from  the  Old  Testament,  consists  of  part  of  the  fifteenth  chap- 
ter of  Exodus,  containino;  the  Song;  of  Moses  :  — 

Thaime  INIoises  song,  and  tlie  sones  of  Israel,  this  song  to  the  Lord  ; 
and  thei  seiden,  Synge  we  to  the  Lord  for  he  is  magnafied  gloriousH ;  he 
castide  down  tiie  hors  and  the  stiere  into  the  see.  My  strengthe  and  my 
preisyng  is  the  Lord,  and  he  is  maad  to  me  uito  heelthe ;  this  is  my  God : 
y  schal  glorifie  hym  the  God  of  my  fadir :  and  y  schal  enhaunce  hym : 
the  Lord  is  as  a  man  fii:ten  :  his  name  is  almizti.  He  castide  doun  into 
the  see  the  charis  of  Farao  and  liis  oost,  his  chosun  princes  weren  drenchid 
in  the  reed  see,  the  deepe  watris  hiliden  them ;  thei  zeden  doun  into  the 
depthe  as  a  stoon.  Lord  thy  rizt  hond  is  magnyfied  in  strengthe  :  Lord 
thi  rizt  hond  smoot  the  enemye :  and  in  the  mychilnesse  of  thi  gloi'ie  thou 
hast  put  doun  all  thyn  adversaryes  ;  thou  sentist  thine  ire  that  devouride 
hem  as  stobil :  and  watris  weren  gaderid  in  the  spirit  of  thi  woodnesse ; 
flowinge  watir  stood  :  depe  watris  weren  gaderid  in  the  middis  of  the  see : 
the  enemy  seide,  Y  schal  pursue  and  y  schal  take,  y  schal  departe  spuylis  : 
<liy  soule  schal  be  fillid  :  I  schal  drawe  out  my  swerde  :  myn  hond  schal 
jjle  hem.  Thi  spirit  blew ;  and  the  see  hilide  hem,  thei  weren  drenchid  as 
leed,  in  grete  watris.  Lord,  who  is  lyk  thee  in  stronge  men  :  who  is  lyk 
thee  :  thou  art  greet  doere  hi  hoolynesse  ;  ferdful  and  p'isable,  and  doyng 
miracles  ;  thou  heldist  ibrth  thine  hond,  and  the  erthe  devouride  hem : 
Thou  were  lederc,  in  thi  merci,  to  thi  puple,  wliicli  thou  azen  bouztest, 
and  thou  hast  boi*e  hym,  in  thi  strengthe,  to  thin  holi  dwellyng  place :  pu- 
pils stieden  and  weren  w^-oothe  :  sorewis  helden  the  dwelleris  of  Flistiym ; 
thane  the  pryncis  of  Edom  Averen  disturblid  ;  trembling  helde  the  stronge 
men  of  Moab :  all  the  dwelleris  of  Canaan  weren  starke.  Liward  drede 
falle  on  hem :  and  outward  drede  in  the  greetnesse  of  thin  arm.  Be  thei 
maad  unmoovable  as  a  stoon,  til  thi  puple  passe,  lord,  til  this  thi  puple 
passe.  Whom  thou  weldidist,  thou  schalt  brynge  hem  in  and  thou  schalt 
plaunte  in  the  hil  of  thin  eritage :  in  the  moost  stidefast  dwellyng  place 
which  thou  hast  wrodzt.  Lord,  Lord,  thi  seyntuarie  which  thin  hondia 
made  stidefast.  The  Lord  schal  regne  in  to  the  world  and  ferth'e.  For- 
sothe  Farao  a  ridere  entride  with  his  charis  and  knyztis  in  to  the  see :  and 
the  Lord  brouzte  the  w^atris  of  the  see  on  him  ;  sotheli  the  sones  of  Israel 
zeden  bi  the  drie  place,  in  the  myddis  of  the  see. 

Therefore  Marie  profetesse,  the  sister  of  Aaron,  tooke  a  tympan  in  hir 
hond,  and  all  the  wymmen  zeden  out  aftir  hyr  with  tympans  companyes  ; 
to  which  sche  song  before  and  seide,  Synge  we  to  the  Lord :  for  he  is 
magnyfied  gloriously,  he  castide  doun  into  the  see  the  hors  and  the  stiere 
jf  hym. 

The  specimen  selected  from  the  New  Testament  is  the  last  chap- 
ter of  St.  Luke  :  — 


364  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

But  in  o  da^  of  the  Avoke  ful  eerli  thei  camen  to  the  grave,  and  brouffhten 
swete  smelling  spices  that  thei  hadden  araved.  And  thei  founden  the 
stoon  turnyd  awey  fro  the  graue.  And  thei  geden  in  and  fovnidun  not  the 
bodi  of  the  Lord  Jhesus.  And  it  was  don.  the  while  thei  weren  astonyed 
in  thought  of  this  thino-,  \o  t"-e  men  stodun  bisidis  hem  in  schynyng 
cloth.  And  wh.-s-nne  thei  dredden  and  boAviden  her  semblauni  into  erthe, 
thei  seiden  to  hem,  what  seeken  ye  him  tha<^  lyueth  with  deede  men  ? 
He  is  not  here :  but  he  is  risun  :  haue  y  mizi'^'i  how  he  spak  to  you 
whanne  he  was  yit  in  Golilee,  and  seide,  for  it  behoueth  mannes  sone  tc 
be  bitakun  into  the  hondis  of  synful  men  :  and  to  be  crucifyed :  and  th« 
thridde  day  to  rise  agen  ?  And  thei  bithoughten  on  hise  wordis,  and  thei 
geden  agen  fro  the  graue  :  and  teelden  alle  these  thingis  to  the  ellevene 
and  to  all  othere.  And  there  was  Marye  Maudeleyn  and  Jone  and  Marye 
of  James,  and  othere  wymmen  that  weren  with  hem,  that  seiden  to  Apos- 
tlis  these  thingis.  And  these  wordis  were  seyn  bifore  hem  as  madnesse 
and  thei  bileueden  not  to  hem  ;  but  Petre  roos  up  and  ran  to  the  graue, 
and  he  oowide  doun,  and  sigh  the  lynen  clothis  liynge  aloone;  and  he  wente 
by  himsilf,  wondrynge  on  that  that  was  don. 

And  lo  tweyne  of  him  wenten  in  that  day  into  a  castel,  that  was  fro 
Jerusalem  the  space  of  sixty  furlongis,  by  name  Emaws.  And  thei 
spaken  togidre  of  alle  these  thingis  that  hadden  bifalle.  And  it  was  don 
the  while  thei  talkiden,  and  soughten  by  hemsilf :  Jesus  himsilf  neighede 
and  wente  with  hem.  But  her  yghen  weren  holdun,  that  thei  knewen  hira 
not.  And  he  seide  to  hem.  What  ben  these  wordis  that  ye  speken  togidere 
wondringe  :  and  ye  ben  sorewful  ?  And  oon,  Avhos  name  was  Cleofas, 
answerde  and  seyde,  Thou  thi  silf  art  a  pilgrim  in  Jerusalem,  and  hast 
thou  not  knowun  what  thingis  ben  don  in  it  these  dayes  ?  To  whom  he 
seyde,  AMiat  thingis  ?  and  thei  seiden  to  him,  Of  Jhesus  of  Nazareth,  that 
was  a  man  profete  myghti  in  werk  and  word  bifore  God  and  al  the  puple. 
And  how  the  higheste  prestis  of  our  Princis  bitokun  him  into  dampnaciouu 
of  deeth :  and  crucifieden  him.  But  we  hopiden  that  he  schulde  haiie 
agen  boughte  Israel :  and  now  on  alle  these  thingis,  the  thirdde  day  is  to 
day  that  these  thingis  weren  don.  But  also  summe  wymmen  of  ouris 
maden  us  aferd  whiche  bifore  day  weren  at  the  graue.  And  whan  his 
bodi  was  not  foundun,  thei  caraen  and  seiden  that  they  sighen  also  a  sight 
of  aungels,  which  seiden  that  he  lyueth.  Aiid  summe  of  ouren  wenten  to 
the  graue,  and  thei  foundun  so  as  the  wymmen  seiden  ;  but  they  foundun 
not  him.  And  he  seide  to  him,  A  foolis  and  slowe  of  herte  to  bileue  in 
alle  thingis  that  the  profetis  han  spoken :  Wher  it  binofte  not  Crist  tc 
3uffre  these  thingis,  and  so  to  entre  into  his  giorye  ?  And  he  began  at 
Moyses  and  at  alle  the  profetis  and  declaride  to  hem  in  alle  scripturis  that 
weren  of  hira.  Ai.d  thei  camen  nygh  the  castel  whidir  thei  wenten  :  and 
he  made  countenaun  ce  that  he  wolde  go  ferthir.     And  thei  constreyneder 


WICLIF.  36-5 

him  and  seiden,  Dwelle  with  us,  for  it  draweth  to  nyght,  and  the  day  is 
now  bowed  doun ;  and  he  entride  with  them.  And  it  was  don  the  while 
he  sat  at  the  mete  with  hem,  he  took  breed  and  blisside  and  brak,  and 
took  to  hem.  And  the  yghen  of  hem  weren  opened,  and  thei  knewen 
hem ;  and  he  vanyschide  fro  her  yghen.  And  thei  seiden  togidere,  Wher 
cure  herte  was  not  biernynge  in  us,  while  he  spak  to  us  in  the  weye,  and 
opened  to  us  Scripturis  ?  And  thei  risen  up  in  the  same  our  and  wenten 
agen  into  Jerusalem,  and  foundun  the  ellevene  gaderid  togidre,  and  hem 
that  weren  with  him,  seiynge,  that  the  Lord  is  risim  verily :  and  apperiJ 
to  Symount.  And  thei  tolden  what  thingis  weren  don  in  the  weye,  and 
how  thei  knewen  him  in  the  brakinge  of  bred.  And  the  while  thei 
spaken  these  thingis  Jhesus  stood  in  the  myddil  of  hem  and  seide  to  hem  ; 
Pees  to  you,  I  am,  nyl  ye  drede  :  but  thei  weren  aiFrayed  and  agast  and 
gessiden  him  to  be  a  spirit.  And  he  seide  to  hem,  what  ben  ye  troubled : 
and  thoughtis  camen  up  into  youre  hertis  ?  Se  ye  my  hondis  and  my 
feet :  for  I  my  silf  am,  feele  ye  and  se  ye,  for  a  spirit  hath  not  flesch  and 
boones  as  ye  seen  that  I  haue.  And  whenne  he  hadde  seid  this  thing ;  h^ 
schewide  hondis  and  feet  to  hem.  And  yet  while  thei  bileueden  not  and 
wondriden  for  joye  :  he  seide,  Han  ye  here  ony  thing  that  schal  be  eiun  ? 
and  thei  profriden  to  him  a  part  of  a  fisch  roostyd,  and  a  honycomb 
And  whanne  he  hadde  etun  bifore  hem,  he  toke  that  that  lefte  and  gaf  to 
hem,  and  seyde  to  hem.  These  ben  the  wordis  that  I  spak  to  you,  whanne 
I  was  yit  Avith  you,  for  it  is  nede  that  alle  thingis  ben  fulfilled  that  ben 
writun  in  the  Lawe  of  Moyses  and  in  the  profetis  and  in  Salmes  of  me. 
Thanne  he  openide  to  hem  with  that  thei  schulden  undirstonde  Scripturis. 
And  he  seide  to  hem.  For  thus  it  is  writun,  and  thus  it  bihofte  Crist  to 
suffre  :  and  rise  agen  fro  death  in  the  thridde  day :  and  penaunce  and  re- 
missioun  of  synnes  to  be  prechid  in  his  name  into  all  folkis  bigynnynge  at 
Jerusalem.  And  ye  ben  witnessis  of  these  thingis.  And  I  schal  send  the 
biheest  of  my  fadir  into  you,  but  sitte  ye  in  the  citee  till  that  ye  ben 
clothed  Avith  vertu  fro  an  high.  And  he  ledde  hem  forth  into  Bethanye  ; 
and  whan  hise  hondes  weren  lift  up,  he  blesside  hem.  And  it  was  don  the 
while  he  blessid  hem  he  departede  fro  hem,  and  was  borun  into  hevene. 
And  thei  worschipiden  and  wenten  agen  into  Jerusalem,  with  gret  ioye  i 
and  weren  euer  more  in  the  temple  heriynge  and  blessinge  God. 

It  would  appear  from  these  two  specimens  that  the  English  of 
this  early  version  of  the  Bible  is  considerably  less  antique  in  the 
New  Testament  than  in  the  Old.  Wiclif  is  also  the  author  of 
many  original  writings  in  his  native  language,  in  defence  of  his 
reforming  views  in  theology  and  church  government,  some  of 
which  have  been  printed,  but  most  of  which  that  are  preserved 
still  remain  in  manuscript.     His  style  is  everywhere  coarse  and 


566  ENGLTSri   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

slovenly,  thongli  sometimes  animated  by  a  popular  force  or  boldness 
of  expression, 

Chaucer  is  the  author  of  three  separate  works  in  prose  :  a  trans- 
lation of  Boethins  de  Consolatione  Philosophise,  printed  by  Caxton, 
in  folio,  without  date,  under  the  title  of  The  Boke  of  Consolaoion 
of  Philosophic,  wich  that  Boecius  made  for  his  Comforte  and  Con- 
solacion  :  a  Ti'eatise  on  the  Astrolabe,  addressed  to  his  son  Lewis, 
in  1391,  and  printed  (at  least  in  part)  in  the  earlier  editions  of  hia 
works  ;  and  The  Testament  of  Love,  an  apparent  imitation  of  ths 
treatise  of  Boethius,  written  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  and  also 
printed  in  the  old  editions  of  his  collected  works.  But,  perhaps, 
the  most  highl}^  finished,  and  in  other  respects  also  the  most  inter- 
esting of  the  great  poet's  prose  compositions  are  the  Tale  of  Meli- 
boeus  and  the  Parson's  Tale,  in  the  Canterbury  Tales.  The  for- 
mer, which  he  tells  himself  as  one  of  the  com]ianv  of  pilgrims, 
and  which  is  a  very  close  translation  from  a  French  treatise  enti- 
tled Le  Livre  de  Melibee  et  de  Dame  Prudence  (existing  both  in 
prose  and  verse),  has  been  supposed,  as  mentivmed  in  a  preceding 
page,  to  be  written  in  a  sort  of  blank  measure  or  rhythm,  ])erha])s, 
Mr.  Guest  thinks,  the  same  that  is  called  cadence  In  the  House  of 
Fame.  The  following  extract  is  from  the  earlier  portion  of  the  Tale, 
where  the  rhythmical  style  is  conceived  to  be  most  marked  :  — 

This  Melibee  answered  unto  his  wife  Prudence  ;  I  purpose  not,  quod 
he,  to  werken  by  tliy  coiniscl  for  many  causes  and  reasons,  for  certes  every 
wight  wold  hold  me  than  ^  a  fool  ;  this  is  to  sayn,  if  T  for  thy  counseling 
wold  change  things  that  been  ordained  and  affirmed  by  so  many  wise  men. 
Secondly,  I  say  that  all  women  ben  Avick,  and  none  good  of  hem  ^  all ;  for 
of  a  thousand  men,  saith  Salomon,  I  found  o  ^  good  man  ;  but  certes  of  all 
women  good  woman  found  I  never.  And  also,  certes,  if  I  governed  me 
'■y  thy  counsel  it  should  seem  that  I  had  yeve  ^  thee  over  me  the  maistry ; 
and  God  forbid  that  it  so  were  ;  for  Jesus  Sirach  saith,  that  if  the  wif 
have  the  maistry  she  is  contrarious  to  her  husband ;  and  Salomon  sayeth, 
Never  in  thy  life,  to  thy  wife,  ne  to  thy  child,  ne  to  thy  friend,  ne  yeve  nc 
power  over  thyself;  for  better  it  were  that  thy  children  ax  ^  of  thee 
thinges  that  hem  needeth,  than  thou  see  thyself  in  the  hands  of  thy 
children.  And  also,  if  I  wol  werch  by  they  counselling,  certes  it  must  bf 
Bome  time  secrce  ®  till  it  were  time  that  it  be  knowen  ;  and  tin's  ne  may 
not  be  if  I  should  be  counselled  by  thee.     For  it  is  written,  the  janglov 

1  Tlion.  2  Them.  3  One. 

*  Given.  *  Ask.  «  Secret 


CHAUCER'S   PROSE.  367 

of  women  ne  can  nothing  hide,  save  that  which  they  wot  not.  After,  the 
philosopher  sayeth,  In  wicked  counsel  women  venquishen  men.  And  fo' 
these  reasons  I  ne  owe  not  ^  to  be  counselled  by  thee.^ 

Whan  Dame  Prudence,  full  debonairly  and  with  great  patience,  had 
heard  all  that  her  husbond  liked  for  to  say,  than  axed  she  of  him  licence 
for  to  speak,  and  said  in  this  wise :  My  lord,  quod  she,  as  to  your  firsi 
reason  it  may  lightly  been  answered,  for  I  say  that  it  is  no  folly  to  change 
counsel  when  the  thing  is  changed,  or  else  when  the  thing  seemeth  other- 
wise than  it  seemed  before.  And  moreover  I  say,  though  that  ye  have 
sworn  and  behight  ^  to  perform  your  emprise,  and  nevertheless  ye  waive  to 
perform  thilk  same  emprise  by  just  cause,  men  should  not  say  therefore  ye 
were  a  liar  ne  forsworn,  for  tlie  book  saith  that  the  wise  man  maketh  no 
leasing  when  he  turneth  his  courage ''  for  the  better.  And,  all  be  it  that 
your  emprise  be  establislied  and  ordained  by  great  multitude  of  folk,  yet 
thar  ^  you  not  accomplish  thilk  ordinance,  but  you  liketh,'  for  the  truth  oi 
things  and  the  profit  ben  rather  founden  in  few  folk  that  ben  wise  and  full 
of  reason,  than  by  great  multitude  of  folk  there ''  every  man  cryeth  and 
clattereth  what  him  liketh  ;  soothly  swich  ^  multitude  is  not  honest.  As 
to  the  second  reason,  whereas  ye  say  that  all  women  ben  wick  ;  save  your 
grace,  certes  ye  despise  all  women  in  this  wise,  and  he  that  all  despiseth, 
as  saith  the  book,  all  displeaseth.  And  Senek  saith,  that  who  so  wol  have 
sapience  shall  no  man  dispraise,  but  he  shall  gladly  teach  the  science  that 
he  can  ^  without  presumption  or  pride,  and  swich  things  as  he  nought  can 
he  shall  not  be  ashamed  to  lear  hem,^''  and  to  inquere  of  less  folk  thar. 
himself.  And,  sir,  that  there  hath  ben  full  many  a  good  woman  may 
lightly  be  preved ;  for  certes,  sir,  our  lord  Jesu  Christ  wold  never  ban 
descended  to  be  born  of  a  woman  if  all  Avomen  had  be  wicked  ;  and  after 
that,  for  the  great  bounty  that  is  in  women,  our  loi-d  Jesu  Christ,  whan  he 
was  risen  from  death  to  life,  appeared  rather  to  a  woman  than  to  his  apos- 
tles. And,  though  that  Salomon  said  he  found  never  no  good  woman,  it 
foUoweth  not  therefore  that  all  women  be  wicked  ;  for,  though  that  he  ne 
found  no  good  Avoman,  certes  many  another  man  hath  found  many  a  woman 
full  good  and  true  ;  or  else,  peradventure,  the  intent "  of  Salomon  was 
this,  that  in  sovereign  bounty  ^^  he  found  no  woman  ;  this  is  to  say,  that 
there  is  no  Avight  that  hath  sovereign  bounty  save  God  above,  as  he  him- 
Beif  recordeth  in  his  Evangelies ;  for  there  is  no  creature  so  good  that  him 
ne  wanteth  somewhat  of  the  perfection  of  God  that  is  his  maker.      iTour 

1  Ought  not. 

2  These  three  last  sentences  are  not  in  the  MSS.,  but  are  an  insertion  of  Tjpr 
whitt's,  translated  from  the  French  Melibee. 

'^  Engaged,  pledged  yourself.  *  Heart,  inclination.  ^  It  behooveth. 

'  Unless  it  liketh  you.  ''  Where.  ^  Such. 

^  Knows,  undertsands.  ^"^  Learn  thera.  ^^  Meaning. 
1-  Goodness. 


368  ENGLISH  LITKHATUKE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

third  reason  is  this  :  ye  say  that  if  that  ye  govern  you  by  my  counsel  it 
should  seem  that  ye  had  yeve  me  the  maistry  and  the  lordship  of  your 
person.  Sir,  save  your  grace,  it  is  not  so  ;  for,  if  so  were  that  no  man 
should  be  counselled,  but  only  of  hem  that  han  lordship  and  maistry  of 
his  person,  men  nold  not  be  counselled  so  often ;  for,  soothly,  thilk  man 
that  asketh  counsel  of  a  purpose,  yet  hath  he  free  choice  whether  he  wol 
vverk  after  that  counsel  or  none.  And  as  to  your  fourth  reason,  there  as 
yesain,^  that  the  janglery  of  women  can  hide  things  that  they  wot  not,  as 
whoso  saith  that  a  woman  cannot  hide  that  she  wot ;  sir,  these  words  ben 
understood  of  women  that  ben  jangleresses  and  wicked,  of  which  women 
men  sain  tliat  three  things  driven  a  man  out  of  his  house,  that  is  to  say^ 
8moke,  dropping  of  rain,  and  wicked  wives  ;  and  of  swich  women  Salomon 
saith,  that  a  man  were  better  dwell  in  desert  than  with  a  woman  that  is 
riotous  ;  and,  sir,  by  your  leave,  that  am  not  I ;  for  ye  have  full  often 
assayed  my  great  silence  and  my  great  patience,  and  eke  how  well  that  i 
can  hide  and  hele  ^  things  that  men  oughten  secretly  to  hiden.  And, 
soothly,  as  to  your  fifth  reason,  whereas  ye  say  that  in  wicked  counsel 
women  venquislien  men,  God  wot  that  thilk  reason  stant  here  in  no  stead ; 
for  understondeth  now  ye  axen  counsel  for  to  do  wickedness,  and  if  ye  wol 
werken  wickedness,  and  your  Avife  restraineth  thilk  Avicked  purpose,  and 
ovei'cometh  you  by  reason  and  by  good  counsel,  certes  your  wife  ought 
rather  to  be  praised  than  to  be  blamed :  thus  should  ye  understond  the 
philosopher  that  saith.  In  wicked  counsel  women  venquishen  hir  ^  husbonds. 
And  there  as  ve  bhimen  all  women  and  hir  reasons,  I  shall  show  you  by 
many  ensaniples  that  many  women  have  been  full  good,  and  yet  ben,'*  and 
hir  counsel  Avholesome  and  profitable.  Eke  some  men  han  said  that  the 
counsel  of  women  is  either  too  dear  or  else  too  little  of  price  ;  but  all  be  it 
so  that  full  many  a  woman  be  bad,  and  hir  counsel  vile  and  nought  worth, 
yet  han  men  founden  full  many  a  good  woman,  and  discreet  and  Avise  in 
counselling.  Lo  Jacob  thorough  the  good  counsel  of  his  mother  Eebeck, 
wan  the  benison  of  his  father  and  the  lordship  over  all  his  brethren. 
Judith,  by  her  good  counsel,  delivered  the  city  of  Bethuly,  in  Avhich  she 
dwelt,  out  of  the  bond  of  Holofern,  that  had  it  besieged  and  Avoid  it  all 
destroy.  Abigail  delivered  Nabal,  her  housbond,  fro  David  the  king,  that 
wold  han  slain  him,  and  appeased  the  ire  of  the  king  by  her  wit,  and  by 
lier  good  counselling.  Hester,  by  lier  counsel,  enhanced  greatly  the  people 
of  God,  in  the  reign  of  Assuerus  tlie  king.  And  the  same  bounty  in  good 
counselling  of  many  a  good  Avoman  moun  ^  men  read  and  tell.  And,  fur- 
ther more,  whan  that  our  Lord  had  created  Adam,  our  form  ®  father,  he 
paid  in  this  wise  ;  It  is  not  good  to  be  a  man  alone  ;  make  Ave  to  him  an 
help  semblable  to  himself.     Here  moun  ye  sec  that  if  that  Avomen  wereu 

1  Whereas  vou  say  '  Conceal.  ^  Their. 

*  Still  are.  ^  May.  ^  First,  original. 


CHAUCER'S   PROSE.  8'o0 

not  good,  and  hir  counsel  good  and  profitable,  our  Lord  God  of  heaven 
wold  neither  had  wrouglit  hem  ne  called  hem  help  of  man,  but  rather  con- 
fusion of  man.  And  then  said  a  clerk  once  in  two  verses,  what  is  bettor 
than  gold  ?  Jasper.  What  is  better  than  Jasper  ?  Wisdom.  And  what 
is  better  than  wisdom  ?  Woman.  And  what  is  better  than  a  good  woman  ? 
Nothing.  And,  sir,  by  many  other  reasons  moun  ye  seen  that  many 
women  ben  good,  and  hir  counsel  good  and  profitable.  .  .  . 

Whan  Melibee  had  heard  the  words  of  his  wife  Prudence,  he  said  thus : 
I  see  well  that  the  word  of  Salomon  is  sooth  ;  for  he  saith  that  words  that 
ben  spoken  discreetly  by  ordinance  ben  honeycombs,  for  they  yeven  sweet- 
ness to  the  soul  and  wholesomeness  to  the  body ;  and,  wife,  because  of  thy 
sweet  words,  and  eke  for  I  have  preved  and  assayed  thy  great  sapience  and 
thy  great  truth,  I  wol  govern  me  by  thy  counsel  in  all  thing. 

This  is  probably  one  of  the  passages  that  have  been  conceived 
to  have  most  of  a  rhythmical  character ;  yet  its  balanced  style  does 
not  go  beyond  what  is  not  uncommon  in  rhetorical  prose.  Part  of 
the  measured  march  of  the  language  may  arise  from  the  French 
tale,  in  perhaps  its  original  form,  having  been  in  verse.  What  is 
called  the  Persones  (or  Parson's)  Tale,  which  winds  up  the  Can- 
terbury Tales,  as  we  possess  the  work,  is  a  long  moral  discourse, 
which,  for  the  greater  part,  is  not  very  entertaining,  but  which  yet 
contains  some  passages  curiously  illustrative  of  the  age  in  which  it 
was  w^ritten.  Here  is  part  of  what  occurs  in  the  section  headed 
De  Superbia  (Of  Pride),  the  first  of  the  seven  mortal  sins.  Tyr- 
wliitt  justly  recommends  that  the  whole  "  should  be  read  carefully 
by  any  antiquary  who  may  mean  to  write  De  re  Vestiaria  of  tlie 
English  nation  in  the  fourteenth  century." 

Now  ben  there  two  manner  of  prides :  that  on  of  hem  ^  is  within  the 
heart  of  a  man,  and  that  other  is  without ;  of  which  soothly  these  foresaid 
things,  and  mo  '^  than  I  have  said,  appertainen  to  pride  that  is  within  the 
heart  of  man.  And  there  be  other  spices  ^  that  ben  witliouten ;  but, 
natheless,  that  on  of  these  spices  of  pride  is  sign  of  that  other,  right  fus 
the  gay  levesell  *  at  the  tavern  is  sign  of  the  wine  that  is  in  the  cellar. 
And  this  is  in  many  things,  as  in  speech  and  countenance,  and  outrageous 
array  of  clothing ;  for  certes  if  there  had  ben  no  sin  in  clothing  Christ 
wold  not  so  soon  have  noted  and  spoken  of  the  clothing  of  thilk  rich  mjin 

1  The  one  of  them.  '^  More.  ^  Species,  kuids. 

*  The  meaning  of  this  word,  which  at  a  later  date  appears  to  liave  been  pro- 
nounced and  written  lease/,  is  unknown.      See  Tyrwhitt's  note  to  Cant.  Tales,  v. 
4059,  and  Glossary,  ad  verbum;  and  note  by  the  editor,  Mr.  Alliert  Way,  on  pp.  300, 
301,  of  the  Promptorium  Parvulorum,  vol.  i.,  printed  for  the  Camden  Society,  4to. 
Lond.  1848. 

VOL.  I.  47 


»J70  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE, 

ill  the  Gospel :  and,  as  Saint  Gregory  saith,  that  precious  clothing  :s  cul 
pable,  for  the  dearth  of  it,  and  for  his  softness,  and  for  his  strangeness  and 
disguising,  and  for  the  superfluity  or  for  the  inordinate  scantiness  of  it. 
Alas !  may  not  a  man  see  as  in  our  days  the  sinfid  costlew  array  of  cloth- 
ing, and  namely  ^  in  too  much  superfluity,  or  else  in  too  disordinate  scant- 
ness. 

As  to  the  first  sin,  in  superfluity  of  clothing,  which  that  maketh  it  so 
dear,  to  the  harm  of  the  people,  not  only  the  cost  of  the  embrouding,^  the 
disguising,  indenting  or  barring,  ownding,^  paling,*  winding,  or  bending, 
and  semblable  waste  of  cloth  in  vanity ;  but  there  is  also  the  costlew  fur- 
ring in  hir  gowns,  so  moch  pounsoning  ®  of  chisel  to  maken  holes,  so  moch 
dagging  ^  of  shears,  with  the  superfluity  in  length  of  the  foresaid  gowns, 
trailing  in  the  dong  and  in  the  mire,  on  horse  and  eke  on  foot,  as  well  .of 
man  as  of  woman,  that  all  thilk  training  is  yerily  (as  in  effect)  wasted, 
consumed,  threadbare,  and  rotten  with  dong,  rather  than  it  is  yeyen  to  the 
poor,  to  great  damage  of  the  foresaid  poor  folk,  and  that  in  sondry  wise ; 
this  is  to  sayn,  the  more  that  cloth  is  wasted,  the  more  must  it  cost  to  the 
poor  people,  for  the  scarceness  ;  and.  furthermore,  if  so  be  that  they  wolden 
yeye  swich  pounsoned  and  dagged  clothing  to  the  poor  people,  it  is  not 
convenient  to  wear  for  hir  estate,  ne  suffisant  to  bote  "^  hir  necessity,  to 
keep  hem  fro  the  distemperance  of  the  firmament.  .  .  . 

Also  the  sin  of  ornament  or  of  apparel  is  in  things  that  appei-tain  to 
riding,  as  in  too  many  delicate  horse  that  ben  holden  for  delight,  that  ben 
so  fair,  fat,  and  costlew  ;  and  also  in  many  a  vicious  knave  that  is  sus- 
tained because  of  hem  ;  in  curious  harness,  as  in  saddles,  croppers,  peitrels, 
and  bridles,  covered  Avith  precious  cloth  and  rich,  barred  and  plated  of 
gold  and  of  silver ;  for  which  God  saith  l)y  Zachary  the  prophet,  I  wol 
confound  the  riders  of  swich  horse.  These  folk  taken  little  regard  of  the 
riding  of  God's  son  of  heaven,  and  of  his  harness,  whan  he  rode  upon  tht 
ass,  and  had  none  other  harness  but  the  poor  clothes  of  his  disciples,  ne 
we  read  not  that  ever  he  rode  on  ony  other  beast.  I  speak  this  for  the 
sin  of  superfluity,  and  not  for  honesty  whan  reason  it  requireth.  And, 
moreover,  certes  pride  is  greatly  notified  in  holding  of  great  meiny,*  whan 
they  ben  of  little  profit,  or  of  right  no  profit,  and  namely  whan  that  meiny 
is  felonious  and  damageous  to  the  people  by  hardiness  of  high  lordslnp,  or 
by  way  of  office  ;  for  certes  swich  lords  sell  than  hir  lordship  to  the  devil 
of  hell,  whan  they  sustain  the  wickedness  of  hir  meiny  ;  or  else  whan 
these  folk  of  low  degree,  as  they  that  holden  hostelries,  sustainen  theft  of 
hir  hostellers,  and  that  is  in  many  manner  of  deceits  ;  thilk  manner  of 
oik  ben  the  flies  that  followen  tlic  lioiiey,  or  else  the  hounds  that  followen 

1  Especially.  2  Embroidering.  •''  Imitating  waves. 

*  Imitating  pales.  *  Punching.  **  Slitting. 

'  Help  (boot),  "  Body  of  menials. 


UNIVERSITIES.  B71 

the  carrain  ;  swich  foresaid  folk  stranglen  spiritually  hir  lordships  ;  for 
which  thus  saith  David  the  prophet,  Wicked  death  mot  come  unto  thilk 
lordships,  and  God  yeve  that  they  mot  descend  into  hell  all  down,  for  in 
hir  houses  is  iniquity  and  shrewedness,  and  not  God  of  heaven :  and 
cei-tes,  but  if  they  done  amendment,  right  as  God  yave  his  benison  to 
Laban  by  the  service  of  Jacob,  and  to  Pharaoh  by  the  service  of  Joseph, 
right  so  wol  God  yeve  his  malison  to  swich  lordships  as  sustain  the  wick- 
edness of  hir  servants,  but  they  come  to  amendment.  Pride  of  the  table 
appeareth  eke  full  oft ;  for  certes  rich  men  be  cleped  ^  to  feasts,  and  poor 
folk  be  put  away  and  rebuked ;  and  also  in  excess  of  divers  meats  and 
drinks,  and  namely  swich  manner  bake  meats  and  dish  meats  brenning'"' 
of  wild  fire,  and  painted  and  castled  with  paper,  and  semblable  waste,  so 
that  it  is  abusion  to  think ;  and  eke  in  too  great  preciousness  of  vessel,  and 
curiosity  of  minstrelsy,  by  wdiich  a  man  is  stirred  more  to  the  delights  of 
luxury. 


LITERATURE    AND  LEARNING   IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 

UNIVERSITIES. 

A  FEW  facts  which  are  important  rather  as  forming  ejlochs  in 
the  chronology  of  our  subject,  and  for  the  results  by  which  they 
were  followed,  than  in  themselves,  constitute  the  main  part  of  the 
history  of  learning  and  literature  in  England  during  the  fifteenth 
century.  The  actual  contributions  of  this  age  to  our  national  lit- 
erature are  smaller  in  amount  and  value  than  those  of  any  preced- 
ing space  of  time  of  the  same  length  since  the  Norman  Conqn.est. 
The  ferment  of  studious  enthusiasm  which  had  been  excited  in 
men's  minds  in  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  century  had,  in  a 
great  measure,  spent  itself  before  the  beginning  of  this.  Accord- 
ing to  an  oration  delivered  before  the  pope  and  cardinals  by  Rich- 
ard Fitz-Ralph,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  in  1357,  the  30,000  stu- 
dents of  the  University  of  Oxford  had  even  by  that  time  decreased 
to  about  6000.  The  popular  veneration  for  learning  had  also, 
from  various  causes,  undergone  a  corresponding  decline  ;  and,  in- 
stead of  the  honors  formerly  paid  by  all  classes  to  talent  and  schol- 
Brshi]),  and  the  crowding  of  eager  multitudes  around  every  emi- 
nent doctor  wherever  he  appeared,  we  perceive  now  the  aspect  of 
a  general  indifference,  and  encounter  occasional  instances  of  the 
'  Called,  invited  2  Burning. 


372  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

votaries  of  science  and  letters  begging  their  bread,  and  of  their 
unappreciated  acquirements  being  tin*ned  into  matter  of  ridicule 
and  mockery  by  the  insolence  of  rank  and  wealth.  Anthony 
Wood,  the  quaint  historian  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  relates  a 
story  of  two  itinerating  students  of  this  age,  who,  having  one  day 
presented  themselves  at  a  baronial  castle,  and  sought  an  introduc- 
tion by  the  exhibition  of  their  academical  credentials,  in  which  they 
were  each  described  as  gifted,  among  other  accomplishments,  with 
a  poetical  vein,  were  ordered  by  the  baron  to  be  suspended  in  a 
pair  of  buckets  over  a  draw-well,  and  dipped  alternately  into  the 
water,  until  each  should  produce  a  couplet  on  his  awk^vard  situa- 
tion ;  it  was  not  till  after  a  considerable  number  of  duckings  that 
the  unfortunate  captives  finished  the  rhymes,  while  their  involun- 
tary ascents  and  descents  during  the  process  of  concoction  were 
heartily  enjoyed  by  the  baron  and  his  company.  It  would  be 
unfair,  indeed,  to  judge  of  the  general  state  of  things  from  one  or 
two  anecdotes  of  this  kind,  although  such  consequences  are  only 
what  might  be  expected  when  scholars  took  to  perambulating  the 
country  as  mendicants,  with  recommendations  to  the  charity  of  the 
benevolent  by  the  chancellors  of  their  universities,  as  we  are  as- 
sured was  now  become  customary  ;  but  the  circumstances  of  our 
own  country  at  least,  in  this  age,  must  have  proved  in  no  small 
degree  depressing  to  all  liberal  pursuits. 

Although  much  of  the  popular  effervescence  had  evaporated, 
however,  the  love  of  knowledge  was  still  alive  and  active  in  many 
of  the  more  select  order  of  minds,  prompting  them  to  zealous 
exertions  both  in  its  acquisition  and  its  diffusion.  In  the  course 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  -s^ery  nearly  forty  new  universities  were 
founded  in  the  different  countries  of  Europe.  In  our  own,  several 
new  colleges  were  added  both  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  In  the 
former  university,  Lincoln  College  was  founded  in  1430  by  Richard 
Flcmyng,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  though  only  completed  about  1475  by 
his  successor,  Thomas  Rotherham  ;  All  Souls  was  founded  in  1437 
by  Chicheley,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  with  the  design  of  pro- 
viding a  perpetual  service  of  prayers  and  masses  for  the  souls  of 
all  the  faithful  departed,  and  especially  of  those  who  had  fallen  or 
should  fall  in  the  French  wars  :  and  iNIagdalen,  which  soon  became 
one  of  the  wealthiest  academical  establishments  in  Europe,  was 
founded  by  William  Pattyn,  or  De  Waynflete,  Bishop  of  Winches- 
ter and   Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  who  began  the   erection  of 


UNIVERSITIES.  378 

the  fabric  in  1458,  and  lived  to  witness  its  completion  in  1479 
Cambridge  received  the  additions,  of  King's  College,  founded  in 
1441,  on  a  scale  of  great  liberality  and  magnificence,  by  Henry 
VI.,  who  established,  about  the  same  time,  the  celebrated  school 
of  Eton,  to  be  a  nursery  for  his  college  ;  of  Queen's  College, 
founded  in  1446,  by  Henry's  consort,  Margaret  of  Anjou ;  and  of 
Catherine  Hall,  founded  in  1475,  by  Robert  Woodlark,  the  third 
provost  of  King's  College.  Extensive  public  buildings,  which  came 
t3  be  known  by  the  name  of  the  New  Schools,  were  also  erected  at 
Oxford  in  1439,  by  Thomas  Hokenorton,  Abbot  of  Osney,  for  the 
delivery  of  lectures  in  metaphysics,  natiiral  philosophy,  moral  phi- 
losophy, astronomy,  geometry,  music,  arithmetic,  logic,  rhetoric, 
and  grammar.  The  foundation  of  a  divinity  school  and  of  a  pub- 
lic library  was  laid  in  the  same  university  about  1427  ;  and, 
although  the  building  was  often  interrupted,  it  was,  at  length, 
through  the  liberal  donations  of  Humphrey  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
Cardinal  John  Kemp,  Archbishop  of  York,  his  nephew  Thomas 
Kemp,  Bishop  of  London,  and  other  benefactors,  completed  in 
1480,  when  it  formed  the  most  magnificent  structure  of  which 
the  university  yet  had  to  boast.  The  building  of  public  schools 
was  also  begun  at  Cambridge,  in  1443,  at  the  expense  of  the  uni- 
versity, and  finished,  by  the  aid  of  vai'ious  contributors,  about 
1475. 

More  interesting,  however,  than  these  extensions  of  former 
establishments,  is  the  founding  of  a  Temple  to  Learning  in  a  part 
of  the  island  in  which  no  permanent  abode  had  ever  before  been 
built  for  her.  The  first  of  the  Scottish  universities,  that  of  St. 
Andrews,  rose  a  few  years  after  the  commencement  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  out  of  the  scheme  of  a  few  men  of  letters  in  that  city,  who, 
probably  on  the  suggestion  of  the  Bishop,  Henry  Wardlaw,  formed 
themselves  into  an  association  for  giving  instruction  in  the  sci- 
ences then  usually  taught  in  universities  to  all  who  chose  to  attend 
their  lectures,  and  are  supposed  to  have  begun  teaching  about  the 
year  1410.  Their  names,  as  recorded  by  the  father  of  Scottish 
history,  and  eminently  worthy  to  be  preserved,  were  Lawrence 
Lindores,  who  undertook  to  explain  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  Mas- 
!,er  of  the  Sentences  ;  Richard  Cornel,  Archdeacon  of  Lothian, 
John  Litster,  canon  of  St.  Andrews,  John  Shevez,  official  of  St. 
Andrews,  and  William  Stephen,  Avho  lectured  on  the  civil  and 
■janon  laws  ;    and  John  Gyll,  William  Fowler,  and  William  Cro- 


374  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

sier,  who  tauglit  logic  and  philosophy.^  The  institution,  with  this 
apparatus  of  professors,  was  already,  in  everjtlung  but  in  fonn,  a 
university,  —  and  such  it  is  styled  in  the  charter  or  grant  of  priv- 
ileges which  AVardlaw  hastened  to  bestow  upon  it.  In  that  instru- 
ment, which  is  dated  the  27th  of  February,  1411,  the  bishop  speaks 
of  the  university  as  having  been  already  actually  instituted  and 
founded  by  himself,  saving  the  authority  of  the  apostolic  see,  and 
laudably  begun  by  those  to  whom  he  addresses  himself,  the  vener- 
able doctors,  masters,  bachelors,  and  scholars  dwelhng  in  his  city 
of  St.  Andrews.  He  now  proceeded  more  formally  to  endow  the 
new  seminary,  m  so  far  as  his  jurisdiction  extended,  with  all  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  a  university.  Two  years  afterwards,  bulls 
of  confirmation,  &c.,  in  the  usual  terms,  were  obtained  from  Ben- 
edict XIII.,  the  one  of  the  three  contending  popes  who  was  ac- 
knowledged by  the  kingdom  of  Scotland.  Benedict's  buUs  are  six 
in  number,  all  dated  the  same  day,  the  25th  of  August,  1413,  at 
Paniscola,  m  Aragon,  Avhere  that  pope  kept  his  court.  They  pro- 
fess to  be  granted  at  the  request  of  the  Scottish  king  (though 
James  I.  was  then  a  prisoner  in  England),  and  of  the  bishop,  prior, 
and  chapter  of  St.  Andrews,  whose  project  of  establishing  a  uni- 
versity, or  studium  generale^  in  that  city,  is  expressly  stated  to  have 
been  formed  ^^^th  the  counsel,  consent,  and  common  participation 
of  the  three  estates  of  the  realm  of  Scotland.'^  The  bishop  and 
his  associates,  it  is  declared,  had  been  stirred  up  to  the  undertak- 
ing by  the  consideration  of  the  many  dangers  and  inconveniences 
to  which  the  clergy  of  that  kingdom  who  desired  to  be  instructed 
in  theology,  the  canon  and  civil  laws,  medicine,  and  the  liberal 
arts  were  exposed,  from  wars  and  other  impediments  m  their  jour- 
neys to  foreign  stuclia  generalia^  in  consequence  of  there  being  no 
such  institution  to  which  they  might  resort  in  their  own  country. 
The  several  papal  bulls  were  brought  to  St.  Andrews  by  Henry  de 
Ogilby,  M.  A.,  on  the  3d  of  February,  1414,  when  they  were  re- 
ceived with  processions  and  ringing  of  bells,  and  every  demonstra- 
tion of  public  joy.  When  King  James  returned  ten  years  after 
this  from  England,  he  found  the  new  seminary  already  firmly 
established,  and  still  flourishing  under  the  protection  of  its  founder, 

'  Forrlun,  Scotichronicon. 

-  Qimd  olim  de  consilio,  consensu,  et  communi  tractatu  trium  statuum  persona- 
rum  rescni  Scotiic — are  the  words  of  the  bull  of  foundation.  —  See  Evidence 
i:ikon  by  the  Commissioners  for  visiting  the  Univfrsities  of  Scotland,  vol.  iii.  p 
171. 


UNIVEKSITIES.  375 

Wardlaw,  who  had  also  been  the  instructor  of  his  own  boyhood. 
James  granted  it  a  charter  confirming  all  its  privileges  and  iuuuu- 
nities,  dated  at  Perth,  the  31st  of  March,  1432  ;  and,  if  we  may 
believe  the  historian  Hector  Boecius,  it  flourished  so  greatly  under 
his  patronage,  that  it  soon  came  to  have  among  its  teachers  no 
fewer  than  thirteen  doctors  of  divinity,  and  eight  doctors  of  laws, 
as  well  as  a  prodigious  multitude  of  students.  The  good  and  en- 
lightened Bishop  Wardlaw  presided  over  the  see  of  St.  Andrews 
till  the  year  1444,  when  the  university  found  in  James  Kennedy  a 
worthy  successor  to  his  virtues  and  public  spirit,  as  well  as  to  his 
place.  As  yet  the  institution  was  little  more  than  an  incorporated 
association,  without  any  permanent  endowments,  and  with  scarcely 
any  buildings  except  a  few  public  lecturing  rooms  ;  it  was  a  uni- 
versity, therefore,  but  as  yet  without  a  college.  Its  first  college  — 
that  of  St.  Salvator  —  was  built  and  endowed  by  Kennedy,  whose 
original  foundation  charter  was  confirmed,  in  a  bull  no  longer  ex- 
tant, by  Pope  Nicholas  V.,  who  died  in  1455.  A  second  charter 
was  granted  by  Kennedy,  at  his  castle  of  St.  Andrews,  on  the  4th 
of  April,  1458,  and  confirmed  by  Pope  Pius  II.,  in  a  bull  dated 
at  Rome,  the  13th  of  September,  in  the  same  year.  In  this  the 
whole  scheme  of  the  establishment  is  minutely  detailed,  and  a  com- 
plete body  of  rules  laid  down  for  its  government.  One  of  the 
bishop's  ordinances  is  curiously  illustrative  of  the  easy  morality  of 
the  time.  Havino-  oiven  some  solemn  directions  as  to  the  hours 
at  which  masses  were  to  be  said  in  all  time  coming  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  college,  who  were  all  to  be  clergymen,  he  proceeds  to 
enjoin  that  all  the  members  of  the  said  college  shall  live  decently 
as  becomes  ecclesiastics,  "  so  as  not,"  it  is  added,  "  to  keep  con- 
cubines publicly,  nor  to  be  common  nightwalkers  or  robbers,  or 
habitually  guilty  of  other  notorious  crimes  ;  and  if  any  of  them  is 
so  (which  it  is  earnestly  hoped  may  not  be  the  case)  let  him  be 
corrected  by  his  superior ;  if  he  prove  incorrigible,  let  him  be  de- 
prived and  another  put  in  his  place."  ^  By  another  bull,  dated 
the  25th  of  February,  1468,  Pope  Paul  II.  granted  to  the  Princi- 
pal and  Masters  of  the  college  of  St.  Salvator  the  right  of  bestow- 
'ng  degrees  in  theology  and  the  arts,  "  in  consideration,"  as  it  is 

^  Ordinamus  insuper,  quod  omnes  dicti  collegii  honeste  vivant,  ut  decet  ecclesi- 
asticos,  ita  quod  non  habeant  publicas  conoubinas,  nee  sint  communes  noctivagi  seu 
brigantes,  aut  aliis  notoriis  criminibus  intenti :  et  si  talis  sit  (quod  absit)  per  supe- 
.-iorem  suum,  c&,e.  —  See  Evidence  taken  by  the  Commissioners  for  visitmg  tlie  Uni- 
versities of  Scotland,  vol.  iii.  272. 


376  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

expressed,  "  of  its  high  and  well-known  reputation  among  the 
other  colleges  of  the  realm  of  Scotland."  ^  The  other  colleo-es 
here  spoken  of  could  be  nothing  more  than  grammar  schools  ;  but 
the  passage  proves,  what  indeed  is  well  established  by  other  evi- 
dence, that  such  schools  already  existed  in  many  of  the  monas- 
teries and  principal  towns.  It  was  at  these  that  the  Scottish  youth 
were  prepared  for  their  attendance  upon  foreign  universities. 

Another  of  the  Scottish  universities  —  that  of  Glaso-ow  —  was 
also  foimded  within  this  same  century.  The  bull  of  foundation 
was  gi'anted  at  the  request  of  James  II.  in  1450,  by  Nicholas  V., 
who  was  "  distinguished  by  his  talents  and  erudition,  and  particu- 
larly by  his  munificent  patronage  of  Grecian  literature."^  Otlier 
royal  and  episcopal  charters  were  subsequently  granted  by  King 
James  II.  (20th  April,  1453)  ;  by  Bishop  Turnbull  (1st  Decem- 
ber, 1453)  ;  by  Bishop  Muirhead  (1st  July,  1461)  ;  and  by  King 
James  III.  (10th  December,  1472).^  But,  "in  none  of  the  papal, 
royal,  or  episcopal  letters  of  privilege,  of  a  date  prior  to  the  Refor- 
mation," observes  the  writer  of  the  able  and  elaborate  account  of 
the  University  of  Glasgow  appended  to  the  General  Report  of  the 
late  Commission  of  Inquiry  into  the  State  of  the  Universities  of 
Scotland,  "  is  there  any  distinct  trace  of  the  constitution  of  the 
university ;  and  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  any  of  these  documents 
refer  to  the  existence  of  a  college^  or  to  the  possession  of  any  prop- 
erty. It  does  not  appear  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  founder 
of  the  luiiversity  that  the  members  should  live  collegialiter,  main- 
tained at  a  public  table,  and  resident  within  the  walls  of  a  separate 

building Universities  might  be  established  (and  some  still 

exist  on  the  Continent)  without  having  even  class-rooms  for  the 
students.  The  University  of  Paris  subsisted  in  great  efficiency 
from  the  age  of  Charlemagne  to  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury (a  period  of  nearly  five  hundred  years)  witliout  having  any 
schools  or  places  of  auditory,  except  such  as  were  hired  in  the 
houses  of  individuals.  During  the  first  twenty  years  after  the 
foundation  of  the  university  of  St.  Andrews,  great  inconvenience 

^  Quod  inter  .alia  collegia  regni  Scotae  collegium  ejusrlem  ecclesiae  egregium  ac 
notahjle  reputatur. —  See  Evidence  taken  by  tlie  Commissioners  for  visiting  the 
Universities  of  Scotland,  vol.  iii.  273. 

-  I\«'P<»rt  of  the  Scottish  University  Commissioners,  p.  213.  See  a  character  of 
Tope  Nicliolas  V.  by  Gibbon  —  who  observes  tliat  his  "fame  has  not  been  adequate 
•<*  hw  merits"— -in  Decline  and  Rill  of  Kom.  Emp.  ch.  G6. 

^  EvidcMice  of  Univ.  Com.  ii.  230-203. 


REVIVAL   OF   LETTERS.  377 

was  suffered,  not  merely  from  the  want  of  such  rooms,  but  from 
the  multij)hcity  of  schools  m  the  different  religious  houses,  all  of 
them  claiming  to  be  considered  as  constituent  parts  of  the  univer- 
sity ;  and  even  after  a  Psedagogium  was  founded,  in  1430,  for  the 
schools  and  halls  of  the  Faculty  of  Arts,  and  for  chambers  to  be 
used  by  the  students  in  that  Faculty,  the  studies  of  the  Facul- 
ties of  Theology  and  Law  were  conducted  in  other  buildings ; 
and  the  congregations  of  the  university  continued  for  at  least 
180  years  to  be  held  in  the  Augustinian  Priory."  ^  A  piece  of 
ground)  however,  with  the  buildings  upon  it,  in  the  High-street 
of  the  city,  was  granted  to  the  University  of  Glasgow  by  James, 
the  first  Lord  Hamilton,  in  1460,  being  the  site  on  which 
the  college  stands  at  the  present  day. 


REVIVAL   OF   LETTERS.  — INVENTION  OF   PRINTING. 

Dark  and  unproductive  as  was  the  greater  part  of  the  fifteenth 
century  in  England  and  France,  the  revival  of  letters  in  the  west- 
ern world  dates  from  this  age.  For  a  considerable  time  before  the 
'capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks,  in  1453,  the  course  of 
political  events  in  the  eastern  empire  had  led  to  a  more  frequent 
intercourse  than  heretofore  between  its  subjects  and  their  fellow- 
Christians  of  the  West,  and  had  not  only  drawn  some  of  the  most 
distinguished  ornaments  of  the  Byzantine  court,  including  three 
of  the  emperors  themselves,  to  visit  the  Latin  kingdoms,  but  had 
induced  several  learned  Greeks  to  come  over  and  settle  in  Italy. 
"  In  their  lowest  servitude  and  depression,"  as  Gibbon  has  said  in 
one  of  his  well-j)oised  sentences,  "  the  subjects  of  the  Byzantine 
throne  Avere  still  possessed  of  a  golden  key  that  could  unlock  the 
treasures  of  antiquity,  —  of  a  musical  and  prolific  language,  that 
gives  a  soul  to  the  objects  of  sense,  and  a  body  to  the  abstractions 
of  philosophy."  It  cannot,  perhaps,  be  said  that  the  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  tongue  was  ever  entirely  lost  in  western  Europe ; 
there  were  probably  in  every  age  a  few  scholars  who  had  more 
than  a  merely  elementary  acquaintance  with  it.  It  is  certain, 
however,  that  it  was  not  a  common  study  even  among  the  most 

1  Report,  p.  214. 
VOL.  I.  48 


378  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

learned.  The  most  eminent  universities  —  such  as  Bologna,  Paris, 
and  Oxford  —  were  without  any  regular  professor  of  Greek.  Even 
the  few  who  did  read  the  language  seem  to  have  read  only  the 
writings  in  it  on  science  and  philosophy.  Warton  has  shown  that 
both  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  Avere  apparently  wholly  unknown, 
or  at  least  not  understood,  in  Europe  from  the  fourth  to  the  four- 
teenth century.^  The  renewed  intercourse  that  has  been  men- 
tioned between  the  East  and  the  West,  beginning  in  the  early 
part  of  the  latter  century,  rapidly  efiected  a  great  revolution  in 
this  respect.  Petrarch,  about  the  year  1340,  began  the  study  of 
the  language  of  Homer,  under  the  instructions  of  the  learned 
Barlaam,  Avho  had  come  to  Italy  as  ambassador  from  Andronicus 
the  Younger  ;  and,  although  the  separation  of  the  two  friends  soon 
after  stopped  the  Tuscan  at  the  threshold  of  the  new  literature,  his 
fi'iend  Boccaccio  twenty  years  later  was  more  fortunate  in  obtain- 
ing the  assistance  of  Leontius  Pilatus,  a  disciple  of  Barlaam,  and, 
under  his  guidance,  penetrated  to  its  inner  glories.  At  a  still  later 
date,  the  destruction  of  their  ancient  empire  drove  a  crowd  of 
illustrious  Greek  exiles  to  Italy,  —  the  Cardinal  Bessarion,  Theo- 
dore Gaza,  George  of  Trebizond,  John  Argyropulus,  Demetrius 
Chalcondyles,  Janus  Lascaris,  and  others,  —  some  of  whom  taught 
their  native  language  in  the  universities  and  chief  towns  of  that 
country,  while  the  rest,  by  their  translations,  by  their  writings,  and 
their  converse  Math  the  public  mind  in  various  ways,  assisted  in 
diffusing  a  taste  for  it  and  a  knowledge  of  it  even  beyond  the  Alps. 
Nor,  as  Gibbon  has  remarked,  was  the  ardor  of  the  Latins  in 
receiving'  and  treasuring  up  this  new  knowledge  inferior  to  that 
of  their  Greek  guests  in  imparting  it.  The  merits  of  Pope  Nicho- 
las v.,  in  the  patronage  of  Greek  literature,  have  been  already 
noticed.  During  the  eight  years  that  he  wore  the  tiara  (fi*om 
1447  to  1455)  this  active  and  liberal  head  of  the  Christian  Church 
added  five  thousand  volumes  to  the  library  of  the  Vatican.  Many 
of  these  were  Greek  books,  or  translations  of  them  into  Latin. 
"  To  his  munificence,"  contiimes  the  great  historian,  "  the  Latin 
world  was  indebted  for  the  versions  of  Xenophon,  Diodorus, 
Polybius,  Thucydides,  Herodotus,  and  Appian  ;  of  Sti'abo's  Geog 
raphy,  of  the  Iliad,  of  the  most  valuable  works  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, of  Ptolemy  and  Theophrastus,  and  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Greek  Church.  The  example  of  the  Roman  pontiff  was  preceded 
1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poetry,  i.  128,  and  ii.  3')2. 


INVENTION    OF   PRINTING.  379 

or  imitated  by  a  Florentine  merchant,  who  governed  the  repubhc 
without  arms  and  without  a  title.  Cosmo  of  Medicis  was  the 
father  of  a  line  of  princes  whose  name  and  age  are  almost  synony- 
mous with  the  restoration  of  learning :  his  credit  was  ennobled  into 
fame  ;  his  riches  were  dedicated  to  the  service  of  mankind ;  he 
corresponded  at  once  with  Cairo  and  London ;  and  a  cargo  of 
Indian  spices  and  Greek  books  was  often  imported  in  the  same 
vessel.  In  his  palace  distress  was  entitled  to  rehef,  and  merit  to 
reward ;  his  leisure  houi's  were  delightfully  spent  in  the  Platonic 
academy  ;  he  encouraged  the  emulation  of  Demetrius  Chalcondyles 
and  Angelo  Politian ;  and  his  active  missionary,  Janus  Lascaris, 
returned  from  the  East  with  a  treasure  of  two  hvmdred  manu- 
scripts, fourscore  of  which  were  as  yet  unknown  in  the  libraries 
of  Europe.^ 

Gibbon  adds,  that,  "  after  a  short  succession  of  foreign  teachers, 
the  tide  of  emigration  subsided  ;  but  the  language  of  Constanti- 
nople was  spread  beyond  the  Alps  ;  and  the  natives  of  France, 
Germany,  and  England  imparted  to  their  country  the  sacred  fire 
which  they  had  kindled  in  the  schools  of  Florence  and  Rome." 
Although,  however,  it  has  been  necessary,  for  the  sake  of  chrono- 
logical distinctness,  to  notice  the  revival  of-  learning  in  Europe  in 
this  place,  the  light  of  that  great  dayspring  scarcely  reached  our 
own  country  within  the  period  with  which  we  are  now  occupied. 
The  Greek  lano;uage  did  not  beoin  to  be  tauoht  at  Oxford  till 
towards  the  very  close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  case  was 
different  with  regard  to  the  other  most  memorable  incident  in  the 
history  of  literature  which  illustrates  the  age  of  which  we  are  now 
treating.  The  three  towns,  of  Haerlem  in  Holland  and  of  May- 
ence  and  Strasburg  in  Germany,  contend  for  the  honor  of  having 
given  birth,  shortly  before  the  middle  of  this  century,  to  the  art 
of  printing.  The  claim  of  Haerlem  rests  upon  a  tradition  that  one 
of  its  citizens,  Lawrence  (or  Laurent)  Janszoon  Coster,  had,  with- 
out assistance  or  communication  with  any  other  individual,  not  only 
invented  the  art,  but  brought  it  to  perfection,  through  the  succes- 
sive stages  of  wooden  types,  types  of  cut  metal,  and  types  cast  in 
the  modern  fashion,  before  the  year  1441 ;  in  which  year  one  of  his 
servants  named  John  —  whom  some  suppose  to  have  been  John 
Faust  —  made  his  escape  to  Mayence,  carrying  with  him  both  the 
lecret  and  a  quantity  of  Coster's  types  and  implements,  with  whic^ 
^  Decline  and  Fall  of  Rom.  Emp.  ch.  66. 


380  ENGLISH   LITERA'lURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

he  began  to  print  in  the  last-mentioned  city  in  the  following  year 
Among  those  who  reject  this  story  there  is  little  disagreement  as  tc 
the  persons  to  w^hom  the  several  parts  of  the  invention  are  to  be 
attributed  ;  the  principal  dispute  is,  whether  the  art  was  first  prac- 
tised at  Mayence  or  at  Strasburg.  The  supporters  of  the  preten- 
sions of  Coster  of  Haerlem,  we  have  said,  assert  his  claims  to  the 
invention  both  of  the  art  of  printing  and  of  the  art  of  type-found- 
ing. These  are  properly  to  be  considered  as  two  perfectly  distinct 
invenaons ;  and,  though  coming  the  one  in  aid  of  the  other,  the 
latter  was  nearly  as  great  an  improvement  upon  the  former,  as  the 
notion  of  printing  with  movable  types  was  upon  the  process,  long 
previously  practised  in  China,  of  producing  impressions  from  blocks 
of  wood  and  other  materials.^  The  principle  of  the  one  consisted 
in  making  the  same  type  available  in  the  production  of  many  dif- 
ferent words  and  pages;  the  principle  of  the  other  consisted  in 
making  one  cutting  serve  for  the  production  of  many  copies  of  the 
same  type.  They  proceeded,  in  fact,  in  opposite  directions :  the 
object  of  the  former  was  attained  by  the  contrivance  of  separate 
types,  by  the  breaking  down  of  the  one  block  into  many  pieces ; 
the  latter  Avas  suggested  by  viewing  the  different  types  of  each  let- 
ter as  essentially  the  same,  that  is  to  say,  by  bringing  together,  as 
it  were,  the  many  into  one.  The  Germans  agree  in  venerating 
three  names  as  those  of  the  fathers  of  the  whole  art  of  printing,  — 
John  Gutenberg,  or  Gutenberger ;  Peter  Schoeffer,  otherwise  called 
Opilio  ;  and  John  Faust.  The  share  which  Faust  had  in  the  mat- 
ter is  involved  in  some  obscurity.  According  to  one  account,  he 
merely  interested  himself  warmly  in  the  invention,  and,  being 
wealthy,  assisted  Gutenberg,  who  was  poor,  with  the  means  of  car* 
rying  on  his  operations.  It  is  admitted  that  the  grand  fundamental 
conception  of  printing  with  separate  or  movable  types  is  due  to 
Gutenberg  alone.  And  to  Schoeffer  is  attributed,  with  equal  una- 
nimity, the  invention  of  casting  types  of  metal  by  means  of  a  matrix. 
For  this  happy  improvement  —  without  which,  indeed,  printing 
with  movable  types  would  have  been  checked  in  its  natural  devel- 
opment, like  an  animal  or  a  plant  left  without  adequate  nourish- 
ment—  Schoeffer,  who  was  at  the  time  in  the  service  of  Gutenberg 
and  Faust,  is  said  to  have  received  from  the  latter  his  only  daughter 

1  Wo  have  elsewhere  endeavored  to  state  more  distinctly  than  had  previously 
Deen  done  in  wliat  it  really  is  that  the  invention  of  printing  essentially  consists.  — 
See  Art.  Priidiwj  in  Penny  Cyclopaedia,  xix.  14-18. 


PRINTINCx  IN  ENGLAND.  381 

in  marriage.  The  first  servants  of  this  high  mystery,  however, 
were  not  of  the  class  of  ordinary  workmen  ;  the  fabrication  of 
books,  which  even  in  its  most  mechanical  forms  had  hitherto  always 
been  an  employment  of  an  intellectual  nature,  was  not  now  com- 
mitted to  persons  without  any  literary  education ;  Schceft'er  had 
studied  in  his  youth  at  the  University  of  Paris,  and  his  scholarly 
acquirements  had  no  doubt  in  the  first  instance  recommended  him 
to  Gutenberg  as  a  fit  assistant  in  his  scholarly  craft. 


PRINTING   IN   ENGLAND.— CAXTON. 

The  art  of  printing  had  been  practised  nearly  thirty  years  in 
Germany  before  it  was  introduced  either  into  England  or  France 
—  with  so  tardy  a  pace  did  knowledge  travel  to  and  fro  over  the 
earth  in  those  days,  or  so  unfavorable  was  the  state  of  these  coun- 
tries for  the  reception  of  even  the  greatest  improvements  in  the 
arts.  At  length  a  citizen  of  London  secured  a  conspicuous  place 
to  his  name  forever  in  the  annals  of  our  national  literature,  by 
being,  so  far  as  is  known,  the  first  of  his  countrymen  that  learned 
the  new  art,  and  certainly  the  first  who  either  practised  it  in  Eng- 
land, or  in  printing  an  English  book.  William  Caxton  was  born, 
as  he  tells  us  himself,  in  the  Weald  of  Kent,  it  is  supposed  about 
the  year  1412.  Thirty  years  after  this  date  his  name  is  found 
among  the  members  of  the  Mercers'  Company  in  London.  Later 
in  life  he  appears  to  have  repeatedly  visited  the  Low  Countries,  at 
first  probably  on  business  of  his  own,  but  afterwards  in  a  sort  of 
public  capacity,  —  having  in  1464  been  commissioned,  along  with 
another  person,  apparently  also  a  merchant,  by  Edward  IV.  to 
negotiate  a  commercial  treaty  with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy.  He 
was  afterwards  taken  into  the  household  of  Margaret  Duchess  of 
Burgundy.  It  was  probably  while  resident  abroad,  in  the  Low 
Countries  or  in  Germany,  that  he  commenced  practising  the  art  of 
printing.  He  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  completed  before  the 
end  of  the  year  1471  impressions  of  Raoul  le  Fevre's  Recueil  des 
Histoires  de  Troyes,  in  folio  ;  of  the  Latin  oration  of  John  Russell 
on  Charles  Duke  of  Burgundy  being  created  a  Knight  of  the  Gar- 
ter, in  quarto  ;    and  of  an   English   translation   by  himself  of  Le 


382  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Fevre's  above-mentioned  history,  in  folio  ;  "  whyche  sayd  transla- 
cion  and  Averke,"  says  tlie  title,  "  was  begonne  in  Brugis  in  1468, 
and  ended  in  the  holy  cyte  of  Colen,  19  Sept.  1471."  But  these 
words  undoubtedly  refer  only  to  the  translation  ;  and  sufficient 
reasons  have  lately  been  advanced  by  Mr.  Knight  for  entertaining 
the  strongest  doubts  of  any  one  of  the  above-mentioned  books 
naving  been  printed  by  Caxton.^  The  earliest  work  now  known. 
which  we  have  sufficient  grounds  for  believing  to  have  been  printed 
by  Caxton,  is  another  English  translation  by  himself,  from  the 
French,  of  a  moral  treatise  entitled  The  Game  and  Playe  of  the 
Chesse,  a  folio  volume,  which  is  stated  to  have  been  "  finished  the 
last  day  of  March,  1474."  It  is  generally  supposed  that  this  work 
was  printed  in  England  ;  and  the  year  1474  accordhigly  is  assumed 
to  have  been  that  of  the  introduction  of  the  art  into  this  country. 
It  is  certainly  known  that  Caxton  was  resident  in  England  in  1477, 
and  had  set  up  his  press  in  the  Almonry,  near  Westminster  Abbey, 
where  he  printed  that  year,  in  folio.  The  Dictes  and  Notable  Wyso 
Sayenges  of  the  Phylosophers,  translated  from  the  French  by 
Anthony  Woodville,  Earl  Rivers.  From  this  time  Caxton  con- 
tinued both  to  print  and  translate  with  indefatigable  industry  for 
about  a  dozen  years,  his  last  publication  with  a  date  having  been 
produced  in  1490,  and  his  death  having  probably  taken  place  in 
1491,  or  1492.2  Before  he  died  he  saw  the  admirable  art  which 
he  had  introduced  into  his  native  country  already  firmly  established 
there,  and  the  practice  of  it  extensively  diffused.  Theodore  Rood, 
John  Lettow,  William  Machelina,  and  W;yTikyn  de  Worde,  for- 
eigners, and  Thomas  Hunt,  an  Englishman,  all  printed  in  London 
both  before  and  after  Caxton's  death.  It  is  probable  that  the  for- 
eigners had  been  his  assistants,  and  were  brought  into  the  country 
by  him.  A  press  was  also  set  up  at  St.  Albans  by  a  schoolmaster 
of  that  place,  whose  name  has  not  been  preserved ;  and  books 
began  to  be  priiited  at  Oxford  so  early  as  the  year  1478.  It  would 
even  appear  that  before  the  end  of  this  period  some  exportation 
of  the  productions  of  the  English  press  had  commenced.  At  the 
end  of  a  Latin  translation  of  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris,  printed  at 
Oxford  in  1485,  is  a  Latin  couplet,  boasting  that  the  Englisli,  wlio 

1  Sec  \Villi:im  Caxton,  a  Bioirrapliy,  12mo.  Lond.  1844,  pp.  103,  &c.     This  work 
has  sin  e  been  expanded  into  Tiic  Old  Printer  and  The  Modern  Tress,  8vo.  1851. 

2  See  article  on  Caxton  in  Penny  Cyclojiipdia,  vol.  vi.  p.  393;  and  witli   much 
3iore  fulness  of  detail  and  illu.stration  in  Mr.  Knight's  Biography  of  CaxUin. 


PRINTING   IN  ENGLAND.  383 

';.ad  been  wont  to  be  indebted  for  books  to  the  Venetians,  now  sold 
oooks  themselves  to  other  nations.^ 

An  enumeration  of  the  principal  works  printed  by  Caxton  will 
present  the  best  view  that  can  be  given  of  the  popular  literature 
of  the  time  ;  for  of  course  he  employed  his  press  in  the  multiplica- 
tion, and  his  pen  in  the  translation,  of  the  kind  of  books  most  in 
request  among  the  reading  portion  of  his  countrymen.  The  pre- 
dominant spirit  of  the  ago  was  still  a  mixture  of  devotion  and 
romance  ;  the  clergy  and  the  nobility  were  also  at  once  the  best 
educated  and  the  wealthiest  classes  ;  accordingly  the  religious  books 
and  the  romances  form  the  two  largest  divisions  in  the  list.  The 
former  comprises  the  Pilgrimage  of  the  Soul,  from  the  French  ; 
Liber  Festivalis,  or  Directions  for  keeping  Feasts  all  the  Year ; 
Quatuor  Sermones  (or  Four  Sermons),  in  English  ;  The  Golden 
Legend  (a  collection  of  Lives  of  the  Saints),  three  editions  ;  The 
Art  and  Craft  to  know  well  to  Die,  from  the  French ;  Infantia 
Salvatoris  (the  Infancy  of  our  Saviour)  ;  The  Life  of  St.  Catherine 
of  Sens  ;  Speculum  Vitae  Christi,  or  Mirror  of  the  Blessed  Life 
of  Jesu  Christ ;  Directorium  Sacerdotura  (a  Directory  of  Church 
Worship)  ;  A  Book  of  Divers  Ghostly  Matters  ;  The  Life  of  St. 
Wynefrid  ;  The  Provincial  Constitutions  of  Bishop  Lyndwood  of 
St.  Asaph,  in  Latin  ;  the  Profitable  Book  of  Man's  Soul,  called 
the  Chastising  of  God's  Children  ;  and  one  or  two  others.  Sev- 
eral of  these  —  such  as  the  Lives  of  the  Saints  —  might  come 
almost  equally  under  the  title  of  books  of  romance.  The  works 
more  properly  relating  to  romance  and  chivalry,  however,  are  the 
following  :  The  History  of  Ti'oy,  already  mentioned  (which  Cax- 
ton at  least  translated,  if  he  did  not  print  it)  ;  The  Book  of  the 
whole  Life  of  Jason  ;  Godfrey  of  Boloyn  ;  The  Knight  of  the 
Tower,  from  the  French  ;  The  Book  of  the  Order  of  Chivalry  or 
Knighthood,  from  the  French  ;  The  Book  Royal,  or  the  Book  for 
a  Kincr  •  A  Book  of  the  Noble  Histories  of  Kins  Arthur  and  of 
Certain  of  his  Knights  ;  The  History  of  the  Noble,  Right  Valiant, 
and  Right  Worthy  Knight  Paris  and  of  the  Fair  Vienne  ;  The 
Book  of  Feats  of  Arms  and  of  Chivalry,  from  the  French  of  Chris- 
tine of  Pisa  ;  and  the  History  of  King  Blanchardine  and  Queen 
Eglantine    his   Wife.     To   these   may  be   added,   the   History  of 

^  Celatos,  Veneti,  nobis  transmittere  libros 
Cedite ;  nos  aliis  vendimus,  0  Veneti. 

Middleton's  Origin  of  Printing  in  England,  p    10 


384  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Renard  the  Fox,  translated  by  Caxton  from  the  German  ;  and  the 
Subtle  Histories  and  Fables  of  ^Esop,  from  the  French.  In  Eng- 
lish poetry  there  are  the  following  works  of  Chaucer,  Gower,  and 
Lydgate  :  —  of  the  first,  The  Tales  of  Canterbury,  two  editions  ; 
The  Book  of  Fame  ;  Troylus  and  Creseide  ;  and  some  minor 
poems  :  —  of  the  second.  The  Confessio  Amantis,  that  is  to  say, 
in  English,  the  Confession  of  the  Lover :  —  of  the  third,  The 
Work  (or  Court)  of  Sapience  ;  The  Life  of  our  Lady  ;  and  some 
minor  poems  along  with  those  of  Chaucer.  And  here  we  may 
take  note  of  the  honorable  conscientiousness  of  our  first  English 
printer,  so  worthy  of  his  high  vocation  as  the  leader  in  the  great 
enterprise  of  gi^^ng  at  once  universal  diffusion  and  an  imperishable 
existence  to  the  literature  of  his  country.  The  manuscript  from 
which  he  had  printed  his  first  edition  of  the  Canterbury  Tales 
happened  unluckil}-,  to  quote  Tyrwhitt's  description,  "  to  be  one 
of  the  very  worst,  in  all  respects,  that  he  coidd  possibly  have  met 
with."  This  he  himself,  as  he  tells  us  in  the  preface  to  his  second 
edition,  discovered  some  time  afterwards,  whereupon  he  did  not 
rest  till  he  had  produced  this  second  edition  from  another  much 
more  correct  manuscrij)t  — "  for  to  satisfy  the  auctor,"  as  he 
expresses  it,  "  whereas  tofore  by  ignorance  I  erred  in  hurting  and 
defaming  his  book  in  divers  ]:>laces,  in  setting  in  some  things  that 
he  never  said  ne  made,  and  leaving  out  many  things  that  he  made 
which  been  recjuisite  to  be  set  in  it."  None  of  the  ancient  Latin 
classics  were  printed  in  England  during  the  fifteenth  ceiitury  ;  but 
the  fist  of  the  productions  of  Caxton's  press  contains  English 
translations  of  Cicero's  Treatises  on  Old  Age  and  on  Friendship  ; 
of  Boethius's  Consolation  of  Philosophy,  by  Chaucer  ;  of  the  Say- 
ings of  the  Philosophers  ;  of  VirgiFs  J^neid,  from  the  French  ; 
and  of  the  works  called  Cato  Magnus  and  Cato  Parvus,  also  from 
the  French.  This  was  by  no  means  a  contemptible  beginning  of 
+he  work  of  transfusing  the  wisdom  and  poetry  of  antiquity  into 
the  mother-tongue.  Provision  was  also  made  for  the  readers  of 
history,  though  not  so  plentifully  as  for  those  of  romance.  The 
list  contains  the  following  historical  and  topographical  works  :  The 
Chronicles  of  England  ;  The  Description  of  Britain  ;  The  Poly- 
ch.  onicon  ;  The  Life  of  Charles  the  Great,  twice  printed  ;  and 
till  Siege  of  the  Noble  and  Invincible  City  of  Rhodes.  Caxton 
also  printed  the  statutes  of  the  first  year  of  Richard  III.,  and  those 
of  the  first,  second,  and  third  parliaments  of  Henry  VH.     Among 


BOOKS   AND   LIBRARIES.  385 

a  few  other  publications  of  a  miscellaneous  description,  the  follow- 
ing may  be  mentioned  as  relating  to  morals  and  the  conduct  of 
life  :  The  Game  of  Chess,  already  noticed  ;  The  Moral  Proverbs 
of  Christine  of  Pisa  ;  The  Book  of  Good  Manners  ;  The  Doctrinal 
of  Sapience,  from  the  French  ;  and  A  Boke  for  Travellers.  On 
the  whole,  the  first  books  that  were  printed  in  England  were,  foi 
the  most  part,  we  see,  books  for  the  general  reader :  none  of  them 
were  works  of  recondite  learning  or  science,  or  adapted  to  the 
tastes  and  studies  only  of  particular  classes  ;  if  they  were  not  all 
equally  edifying,  they  were  all  as  much  as  possible  addi'essed  to 
the  <Treat  body  of  the  reading  public  —  the  only  audience  that 
was  then  sufficiently  numerous  to  call  into  profitable  exercise  the 
multiplying  powers  of  the  press. 


BOOKS   AND   LTBRARIP:S. 

It  follows,  that  it  was  only  books  of  a  certain  description  the 
price  of  which  was  at  first  reduced  by  the  new  invention.  For  a 
considerable  time  after  the  art  of  printing  came  into  use,  we  find 
the  price  of  many  books  still  as  excessiA^e  as  ever,  and  the  same 
anxious  precautions  taken  for  their  security  that  had  been  usual, 
when  the  only  mode  of  multiplying  a  volume  was  by  its  repeated, 
transcription.  In  1471,  for  example,  when  Louis  XI.  of  France 
wished  to  borrow  from  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  at  Paris  a  copy 
of  the  works  of  the  Arabian  physician  Rhasis,  that  he  might  have 
a  transcript  made  for  his  own  library,  the  Faculty,  in  a  formal 
letter,  took  credit  for  extraordinary  loyalty  in  assenting  to  the 
application,  and,  after  all,  would  not  let  the  king  have  the  book 
until  he  had  not  only  deposited  in  pledge  for  it  a  considerable  quan- 
tity of  valuable  plate,  but  procured  a  nobleman  to  join  with  him  as 
surety  in  a  deed  by  which  he  bound  himself  to  return  it  uninjured 
under  a  considerable  forfeiture.^  On  a  manuscript  of  Matthew 
Paris,  now  in  the  Bi'itish  Museum,  there  is  an  inscription,  in  Latin, 
dated  1st  June,  1488,  in  the  handwriting  and  with  the  signature 
of  John  Russell,  then  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  in  which  whosoever  shall 
obliterate    or    destroy  the    bishop's    memorandum    respecting   the 

Crevier,  Hist,  de  I'Univ.  fie  Paris,  iv.  337. 
VOL.  I.  49 


386  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

ownership  of  the  volume  is  solemnly  declared  to  be  accursed.^  At 
this  time  by  far  the  greater  number  of  books  Avere  still  unprinted ; 
and  every  considerable  library  consisted  chiefly  of  manuscripts, 
just  as  it  did  before  the  invention  of  the  art  of  printing.  Warton 
has  collected  the  following  facts  respecting  the  libraries  of  the  fif- 
teentli  century,  and  the  inconveniences  and  impediments  to  study 
Avhich  must  have  been  produced  by  the  scarcity  of  books.  "  The 
famous  library  established  in  the  University  of  Oxford  by  that 
munificent  patron  of  hterature,  Humphrey  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
contained  only  600  volumes.  [It  was  opened  in  the  year  1480.] 
About  the  commencement  of  the  fourteenth  century,  there  were 
only  four  classics  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Paris  :  these  were^  one 
copy  of  Cicero,  Ovid,  Lucan,  and  Boethius  ;  the  rest  were  chiefly 
books  of  devotion,  which  included  but  few  of  the  Fathers  ;  many 
treatises  of  astrology,  geomancy,  chiromancy,  and  medicine,  orio-- 
inally  written  in  Arabic,  and  translated  into  Latin  or  French  ; 
pandects,  chronicles,  and  romances.  The  Avhole  consisted  of  900 
volumes.  They  were  de])osited  in  three  chambers  (in  the  Louvre), 
Avhich,  on  this  occasion,  were  wainscoted  with  Irish  oak,  and  ceiled 
with  cypress,  curiously  carved.  The  windows  were  of  painted 
glass,  fenced  with  iron  bars  and  copper  wire.  The  Eno-hsh 
became  masters  of  Paris  in  the  year  1425  ;  on  which  event  the 
Duke  of  Bedford,  Regent  of  France,  sent  this  whole  library  — 
then  consisting  of  only  853  volumes,  and  valued  at  2223  livres  — 
into  England  ;  where,  perhaps,  they  became  the  groundwork  of 
Duke  Humphrey's  library,  just  mentioned."  ^  In  another  place 
the  sanie  writer  furnishes  the  following  additional  information 
respecting  Duke  Humphrey,  and  his  munificence  as  a  book  collec- 
tor:  —  "  About  the  year  1440  he  gave  to  the  University  of  Oxford 
a  library,  containing  600  volumes,  only  120  of  which  were  valued 
at  1000/.  They  were  the  most  splendid  and  costly  copies  that 
could  be  procured,  finely  Avritten  on  vellum,  and  elegantly  embel- 
lished with  miniatures  and  illuminations  :  among  the  i*est  was  a 
translation  into  French  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses.  Only  a  single 
specimen  of  these  valuable  volumes  was  suffered  to  remain  :  it  is 
a  beautiful   manuscript,  in  folio,  of  Valerius   Maximus,  enriched 

1  Warton,  Dissert,  on  IntroJ.  of  Learning  into  Eng.  p.  cxi.  The  volume  is  one 
■)f  tlie  Koyal  MSS.,  marked  14  C  vii.  It  appears,  from  an  inscription  in  tlie  author's 
Dwn  liand,  to  have  been  a  presentation  copy  iroin  liiiuself,  probably  to  some  cliurch 
»r  monastery. 

■■^  Diss,  on  Iiitrod.  of  Learning,  p.  cxiii 


TIPTOFT,   EARL    OF   WORCESTER.  387 

witli  the  most  elegant  decorations,  and  %\Titten  in  Duke  Hum 
phrey's  age,  evidently  witli  a  design  of  being  placed  in  this  sump- 
tuous collection.  All  the  rest  of  the  books  —  which,  like  this, 
being  highly  ornamented,  looked  like  missals,  and  conveyed  ideas 
of  popish  superstition  —  were  destroyed  or  removed  by  the  pious 
visitors  of  the  University  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  whose  zeal 
was  equalled  only  by  their  ignorance,  or  perhaps  by  their  avarice."  ^ 
Several  of  the  volumes  of  Duke  Humphrey's  library,  however, 
still  remain  in  various  collections.  In  the  library  of  Oriel  College, 
Oxford,  is  a  copy  of  John  Capgrave's  Commentary  on  Genesis,  in 
the  author's  luindwriting,  preceded  by  a  Dedication  to  the  Duke, 
the  beautifully  illuminated  initial  letter  of  which  represents  Cap- 
grave  humbly  presenting  his  book  to  his  patron.  The  volume 
contains  also  an  entiy,  in  French,  in  tlie  handwriting  of  the  Duke, 
recording  it  to  have  been  presented  to  him  in  the  year  1438. 
Warton  goes  on  to  state  that  the  patronage  of  Duke  Humphrey 
was  not  confined  to  English  scholars.  Many  of  the  most  cele- 
brated writers  of  France  and  Italy  solicited  his  favor  and  shared 
his  bounty.  He  also  employed  several  learned  foreigners  in  tran- 
scribing and  in  making  translations  of  Greek  works  into  Latin. 
The  only  literary  production  which  has  been  ascribed  to  this  distin- 
guished patron  of  letters  is  a  small  tract  on  Astronomy  ;  and  it 
appears  to  have  been  only  compiled  at  his  instance,  after  tables 
which  he  had  constructed.  In  tlie  library  of  Gresham  College, 
however,  there  is  a  scheme  of  astronomical  calculations  which  bears 
his  name.  "  Astronomy,"  says  Warton,  "  was  then  a  favorite 
science  ;  nor  is  it  to  be  doubted  that  he  was  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  polite  branches  of  knowledge,  which  now  began  to  acquire 
2stimation,  and  which  his  liberal  and  judicious  attention  greatly 
contributed  to  restore."  ^ 


TIPTOFT,  EARL   Oi^    WORCESTER.  -  WOODVILLE,   EARL 

RIVERS. 

The  most  distinguished  among  the  English  nobility  of  this  rude 
age  for  learning  and  intellectual  tastes,  was  John  Tiptoft,  originall}? 
1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poetry,  ii.  355.  ^  j^i(j.  359. 


388  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Lord  TIptoft,  who  was  created  Earl  of  Worcester  by  Henry  VI. 
He  afterwards,  however,  attached  himself  to  the  Yorkist  family, 
for  which  he  was  put  to  death  by  Warwick,  during  the  short  resto- 
ration of  Henry  VI.,  in  1470,  — his  execution  being  the  only  vin- 
dictiA^e  act  of  bloodshed  by  which  that  revolution  was  stained. 
The  latest  continuation  of  the  history  of  the  Abbey  of  Croyland 
(printed  by  Fiilman,  in  his  Rerum  Anglic.  Scriptor.,  pp.  449- 
646)  asserts  that  the  Earl  had,  by  his  cruelty  in  the  office  of  Con- 
stable of  the  Tower,  acquired  the  hatred  of  the  people,  who  called 
him  "  the  Butcher "  ;  but  general  and  passionate  imputations  of 
this  kind  cannot  be  allowed  to  go  for  much  in  the  inflammation 
and  ferocity  of  such  a  contest  as  then  agitated  men's  minds.  The 
more  specific  statement  of  other  writers  is,  that  Worcester  was 
sent  to  the  block  under  the  pretence  of  punishing  him  for  cruelty 
of  which  he  had  been  guilty  many  years  before,  while  exercising 
the  government  of  Ireland,  particularly  towards  two  infant  sons 
of  the  Earl  of  Desmond.  As  Walpole  has  well  said,  "  it  was  an 
unwonted  strain  of  tenderness  in  a  man  so  little  scrupulous  of  blood 
as  Warwick,  to  put  to  death  so  great  a  peer  for  some  inhumanity 
to  the  children  of  an  Irish  lord ;  nor  does  one  conceive  why  he 
sought  for  so  remote  a  crime :  he  was  not  often  so  delicate.  Tip- 
toft  seems  to  have  been  punished  by  Warwick  for  leaving  Henry 
for  Edward,  when  Warwick  had  thought  fit  to  quit  Edward  for 
Henry."  ^  Others  of  the  old  chroniclers  ascribe  the  charges 
brought  against  him  to  the  malice  of  his  enemies.  He  was  prob- 
ably singled  out  for  destruction  as  being  the  ablest  and  most  dan- 
gerous man  of  his  party  ;  for  Worcester  was  distinguished  for  his 
political  and  military  talents,  as  well  as  for  his  scholarship.  It 
would  be  strange,  at  any  rate,  if  his  intellectual  acquirements  — 
which  raised  him  so  high  above  the  herd  of  his  fellow-nobles,  and 
the  great  body  of  his  countrymen  —  should,  instead  of  softening 
and  humanizing  him,  according  to  the  ancient  poet's  celebration  of 
the  eflPect  of  "  having  faithfully  learned  the  ingenuous  arts,"  ^  have 
had  an  influence  of  the  very  opposite  kind  upon  his  nature  and 
conduct.  The  Earl  of  Worcester  was  an  ardent  lover  of  books, 
and  was,  as  well  as  Duke  Humphrey,  a  liberal  contributor  to  the 
shelves  of  the  rising  public  library  of  the  University  of  Oxford. 
On  his  retarn  from  a  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  after  residing  for 

1  Royal  and  Noble  Aiitliors. 

2  Ovid,  Ex  Ponto,  Lib.  ii.  Ep.  9,  v.  47. 


WOODVILLE,   EARL   RIVERS.  389 

some  years  at  Padua  and  Venice,  and  making  great  purchases  of 
manuscripts  in  both  those  places,  he  repaired  to  Rome  to  satisfy 
his  longing  curiosity  with  a  sight  of  the  library  of  the  Vatican, 
and  drew  tears  of  delight  from  Pope  Pius  II.  (the  learned  ^Eneas 
Sylvius)  by  a  Latin  oration  which  he  pronounced  before  him. 
Of  his  literary  performances,  the  principal  one  that  remains  is  the 
translation  of  Cicero's  Treatise  on  Friendship,  which  was  published 
by  Caxton.  He  was  one  of  the  chief  patrons  of  this  earliest  Eng- 
lish printer,  who  says  of  him  that  he  was  one  "  to  whom  he  knew 
none  hke  among  the  lords  of  the  temporality  for  science  and  moral 
virtue,"  — a  far  better  testimony  to  his  worth  than  the  party-spirit 
of  the  Croyland  historian,  or  even  the  temporary  clamor  of  the 
populace,  if  such  did  make  itself  heard  against  him  in  the  triumph 
of  the  opposite  faction,  is  of  the  reverse.  He  was  only  in  his 
forty-second  year  when  he  was  put  to  death;  "at  which  death," 
says  Caxton,  "  every  man  that  was  there  might  learn  to  die,  and 
take  his  death  patiently." 

Fuller  has  said  that  "  the  axe  then  did  at  one  blow  cut  off  more 
learning  than  was  left  in  the  heads  of  all  the  surviving  nobility." 
Yet  there  still  survived  a  noble  contemporary  of  Tiptoft,  "  by  no 
means,"  to  use  the  words  of  Walpole,  "  inferior  to  him  in  learning 
and  politeness,  in  birth  his  equal,  by  alliance  his  superior,  greater 
in  feats  of  arms,  and  in  pilgrimages  more  abundant."  This  was 
Anthony  Widville,  or  Woodville,  Lord  Scales  and  Earl  Rivers,  the 
brother  of  the  fair  queen  of  Edward  IV.  By  a  fate  closely  resem- 
bling that  of  the  Earl  of  Worcester,  the  brave  and  accomplished 
Lord  Rivers  was  beheaded  at  Pomfret  Castle,  by  order  of  the  Pro- 
tector Gloucester,  afterwards  Richard  III.,  along  with  the  queen's 
son  Sir  Richard  Grey,  and  other  victims,  on  the  23d  of  June,  1483. 
The  Earl,  when  he  thus  perished,  had  not  completed  his  forty- 
first  year.  At  a  famous  combat  which  took  place  in  Smithfield, 
between  Rivers,  then  Lord  Scales,  and  Anthony  the  Bastard  of 
Burgundy,  in  1467,  the  Earl  of  Worcester  presided  as  Lord  High 
Constable  ;  so  that  two  of  the  chief  figures  at  this  one  of  the 
latest  real  passages  of  arms  held  in  England,  were  the  two  Eng- 
lishmen the  most  distinguished  of  their  time  for  those  intellectual 
tastes  and  accomplishments  in  the  diffused  light  of  which  the 
empire  of  chivalry  and  the  sword  was  ere  long  to  fade  away,  as 
the  stars  disappear  before  the  sun.  Walpole  has  di-awn  the  char- 
acter of  Earl  Rivers  in  his  most  graphic  style :  —  "  The  credit  of 


390  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

his  sister,  tlie  countenance  and  example  of  his  prince,  the  boister- 
ousness  of  the  times,  nothing  softened,  nothing  roughened  the 
mind  of  this  amiable  lord,  who  was  as  gallant  as  his  luxvirious 
brother-in-law,  without  his  weaknesses  —  as  brave  as  the  heroes  of 
either  Rose,  without  their  savageness  —  studious  in  the  intervals 
of  business  —  and  devout  after  the  manner  of  those  whimsical 
times,  when  men  challenged  others  whom  they  never  saw,  and 
Avent  barefoot  to  visit  shrines  in  countries  of  which  they  had 
scarce  a  map."  He  was  also  one  of  Caxton's  great  patrons,  and 
was  the  author  of  several  of  those  translations  from  the  French 
which  the  latter  printed.  In  a  manuscript  copy,  in  the  arch- 
bishop's library  at  Lambeth,  of  one  of  these  translations  —  that 
of  the  Diets  and  Sayings  of  the  Philosophers  (which  Rivers  exe- 
cuted for  the  instruction  of  his  nephew,  the  young  Prince  of 
Wales,  to  whom  he  was  governor)  —  there  is  an  interesting  illu- 
mination, in  which  the  Earl  is  represented  introducing  Caxton  to 
Edward  IV.,  his  queen,  and  the  prince.  In  this  instance,  Earl 
Rivers  condescended  to  translate  a  translation,  for  the  original  of 
the  Diets  and  Sayings  is  in  Latin.  He  was  also  the  author  of 
the  metrical  version  of  the  Proverbs  of  Christine  of  Pisa,  and  of 
another  of  Caxton's  publications  nained  Cordial,  or  Memorare 
Novisima,  both  from  the  French.  But  these  and  the  other  trans- 
lations in  which  the  art  of  printing,  on  its  first  establishment  among 
us,  exercised  its  })owers  of  multiplying  the  fountains  of  knowledge 
and  of  mental  gratification  were,  as  Walpole  observes,  as  much  new 
and  real  presents  to  the  age  as  original  works  would  have  been. 
To  Lords  Worcester  and  Rivers  this  writer  conceives  their  country 
to  have  been  in  a  great  measure  indebted  for  the  restoration  of 
learning.  "  The  countenance,  the  example,"  he  remarks,  "  of 
men  in  their  situation,  must  have  operated  more  strongly  than  the 
attempts  of  an  hundi'ed  professors,  benedictines,  and  commenta- 
tors." i 


SCIENCE  IN  ENGLAND.— ALCHEMISTS. 

Although  Chaucer  had  already  set  the  example  of  writing  on 
s(uentific    subjects  in    the   mother-tongue    by  his   treatise   on   tlie 
^  Roy;il  and  Noble  Authors,  vol.  i. 


SCIENCE   IN   ENGLAND.  393 

Astrolabe,  —  the  oldest  work  in  English  now  known  to  exist  on 
any  branch  of  science,^  —  this  department  of  study  was  but  very 
little  cultivated  in  England  during  the  present  period.  The  short 
hst  of  English  scientific  works  during  the  fifteenth  century  does 
not  contain  a  single  name  remembered,  or  deserving  of  being 
remembered,  in  the  history  of  science.^  The  dreams  of  astrology 
and  alchemy  still  captivated  and  bewildered  almost  all  who  turned 
their  attention  either  to  mathematical  or  natural  philosophy.  The 
only  diffei'ence  of  opinion  with  regard  to  these  mysterious  pursuits 
was  whether  they  were  or  were  not  forbidden  by  the  law  of  God. 
Nobody  doubted  the  most  marvellous  of  their  pretensions ;  but 
many  thought  a  skill  in  them  was  rather  an  inspiration  from  the 
prince  of  darkness  than  light  fi'om  heaven.  Probably,  however, 
it  was  not  any  feeling  of  this  kind  that  occasioned  an  act  of  parlia- 
ment passed  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  making 
it  felony  to  practise  the  ti'ansmutation  of  metals,  thex-e  designated 
"the  multiplying  of  gold  or  silver,  or  the  craft  of  multiplication:"^ 
the  prohibition  has  more  the  look  of  having  been  dictated  by  polit- 
ical or  economical  considerations,  as  if  there  had  been  some  appre- 
hension that  the  operations  of  the  multipliers  miglit  possibly  aflPect 
the  value  of  the  khig's  coin.  Henry  IV.,  at  any  rate,  with  all  liis 
piety,  was  as  great  a  patron  of  the  alchemists  as  Edward  HI.  had 
been  before  him.  These  impostors  practised  with  abundant  suc- 
cess upon  his  weakness  and  credulity,  repeatedly  inducing  him  to 
advance  them  money  wherewith  to  prosecute  their  idle  operations, 
as  well  as  procuring  from  him  protections,  which  he  sometimes  pre- 
vailed upon  the  Parliament  to  confirm,  from  the  penalties  of  the 
statute  that  has  just  been  mentioned.  In  one  of  these  protec- 
tions granted  to  the  three  "famous  men,"  John  Fauceby,  John 
Kirkeby,  and  John  Rayny,  which  was  confirmed  by  Parliament 
31st  May  1456,  the  object  of  the  researches  of  the  said  philoso- 
phers is  described  to  be  "  a  certain  most  precious  medicine,  called 
by  some  the  mother  and  queen  of  medicines ;  by  some  the  inesti- 
mable glory ;  by  others  the  quintessence  ;  by  others  the  philoso 
.plier's  stone  ;  by  others  the  elixir  of  life  ;  which  cures  all  curable 

^  See  Book  of  Table  Talk,  i.  199. 

^  See  all  those  whose  names  have  been  recovered  enumerated,  with  notices  of 
tlicir  insijrnifieant  performances,  in  a  paper  on  the  English  Mathematical  and  As« 
•.runomical  Writers  between  the  Norman  Conquest  and  the  year  1600,  in  the  Com' 
panion  to  the  Almanac  for  1837,  pp.  22-26. 

2  Stat   Henry  IV.,  c.  iv. 


392  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

diseases  with  ease,  prolongs  human  hfe  in  perfect  health  and 
vigor  of  faculty  to  its  utmost  term,  heals  all  healable  wounds,  ia 
a  most  sovereign  antidote  against  all  poisons,  and  is  capable,"  the 
enumeration  of  virtues  concludes,  "  of  preserving  to  us,  and  our 
kingdom,  other  great  advantages,  such  as  the  transmutation  of 
other  metals  into  real  and  fine  gold  and  silver."^  The  philosopher's 
stone,  and  the  elixir  of  life,  it  will  be  observed,  are  here  spoken  of 
as  one  and  the  same  medicine,  contrary,  we  believe,  to  the  com- 
mon notion.  The  power  attributed  to  the  medicine,  also,  in  the 
prolongation  of  life  scarcely  goes  the  length  of  the  accounts  usu- 
ally given.  Fauceby,  here  mentioned,  is  elsewhere  designated  the 
king's  physician.  Another  of  Henry's  physicians  was  Gilbert 
Kymer,  who  was  a  clergyman,  and,  among  other  ecclesiastical 
promotions,  held  the  offices  of  dean  of  Salisbury  and  chancellor 
of  the  University  of  Oxford.  From  this  example  we  may  per- 
ceive that  the  practice  of  medicine  was  still,  to  some  extent,  in  the 
hands  of  the  clergy.  The  art  itself  appears  to  have  made  little  or 
no  progress  within  the  present  period ;  indeed  it  may  be  doubted 
if  the  knowledge  that  had  formerly  been  derived  from  the  Arabic 
authors  and  schools  was  not  now  diminished  rather  than  increased. 
Almost  the  only  medical  work  that  appeared  in  England  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  even  the  title  of  which  is  now  remembered,  is 
the  Dietarium  de  Sanitatis  Custodia  (or  Dietary  for  the  Preserva- 
tion of  Health)  of  this  Dr.  Gilbert  Kymer.  It  is  a  tract  consist- 
ing of  twenty-six  chapters,  and  is  dedicated,  like  so  many  others 
of  the  productions  of  the  learned  of  this  age,  both  in  England  and 
other  countries,  to  the  great  patron  of  literature,  Humphrey  Duke 
of  Gloucester.  Surgery  was  also  in  as  rude  a  state  as  ever.  It 
appears,  fi-om  a  record  in  the  Foedera,  that  in  Henry  V.'s  army 
which  won  the  battle  of  Agincourt  there  was  only  one  surgeon, 
a  certain  John  ]\Iorstede,  fifteen  assistants,  whom  he  had  pressed 
under  a  royal  wai'rant,  not  having  yet  landed.  Of  these  assistants 
three  were  also  to  act  as  archers,  the  whole  number  having  the  pay 
of  common  archers,  and  Morstede  himself  only  that  of  a  man-at- 
arms.  The  art,  indeed,  was  hardly  yet  considered  as  anything 
more  than  a  species  of  mechanical  handicraft.  It  deserves  to  be 
jioti'd,  however,  that  the  operation  of  litliotomy  was  successfully 
x'rfornicd  at  Paris  for  the  first  time,  at  least  by  any  modern  sur- 
geon, in  tlu!  }ear  1474,  on  a  condemned  criminal,  whose  life  waa 

1  Foedera,  xi.  379. 


LATIN   CHRONICLERS.  393 

granted  by  the  king  to  the  petition  of  the  physicians  and  surgeon? 
of  the  city,  that  he  might  serve,  according  to  the  philosophic 
maxim,  as  the  corpus  vile,  or  wortliless  subject,  of  the  experi- 
ment. 


LATIN   CHRONICLERS. 

Of  the  literary  productions  of  this  age  the  literary  merits  are  in 
general  of  the  humblest  description.  Among  the  Latin  historians, 
or  chroniclers,  Thomas  Walsingham  may  be  accounted  one  of  the 
best,  if  not  the  chief.  He  was  a  Benedictine  of  the  Abbey  of  St. 
Albans,  and  is  the  author  of  two  works  :  one,  a  History  of  Eng- 
land, entitled  Historia  Brevis,  which  begins  at  1273,  where  Mat- 
thew Paris  ends,  and  extends  to  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  VI. ;  the  other,  a  History  of  Normandy,  imder  the  title  of 
Ypodigma  Neustriae,  from  the  first  acquisition  of  the  duchy  by 
Rollo  the  Dane.  The  style  of  these  chronicles  is  sufficiently  rude 
and  unpolished  ;  but  they  are  very  full  and  circumstantial ;  and  the 
English  History,  even  in  the  earlier  part  of  it,  contains  many  things 
not  mentioned  by  any  contemporary  writer.^  The  com})i]ation  of 
English  History  by  Thomas  Otterbourne,  a  Franciscan  friar,  from 
the  landing  of  Brutus  to  the  year  1420,  is  held  in  small  estimation.^ 
A  much  more  valuable  performance  is  the  Chronicon  of  John  de 
Whethamstede,  Abbot  of  St.  Albans,  although  it  only  extends  from 
the  year  1441  to  1461.^  Whethamstede  was  a  person  of  judgment 
as  well  as  of  considerable  learning.  He  was  an  especial  favorite 
with  Duke  Humphrey,  who  was  accustomed  to  visit  him  in  his 
monastery,  where  the  monks,  however,  accused  their  abbot  of 
spending  too  much  of  his  time  in  study  and  in  writing  books, 
though  he  was  a  most  liberal  benefactor  to  their  establishment. 
But  probably  neither  the  libraries  he  built  and  furnished  both  at 
St.  Albans  and  at  Oxford,  the  organs  and  pictures  with  which  he 
adorned  the  church  and  chapels  of  his  monastery,  nor  the  extensive 
additions  which  he  made  to  its  buildings,  compensated  in  their  esti- 

1  Published  together  by  Archbishop  Parker,  fol.  Lon.  1574.     Also  in  Catuden'a 
Anglica,  &c.,  fol.  Francof.  1603. 
'^  Published  by  Hearne,  in  2  vols.  8vo.  Oxon.  1732. 
^  Published  by  Hearne,  along  with  Otterbourne. 
VOL.   I.  50 


394  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

mation  for  tastes  and  habits  so  different  from  their  own.  Anothef 
of  the  Latin  liistorians  of  this  period  whose  name  is  connected  with 
Duke  Humphrey  is  the  Itahan,  Titus  Livius  Forojuliensis,  as  he 
calls  himself,  the  author  of  a  Life  of  Henry  V.^  He  was  invited 
to  England  by  the  Duke,  who  appointed  him  to  be  his  poet  and 
orator.  His  Life  of  Henry  V.,  however,  is  very  little  else  than  an 
abridgment  of  the  work  on  the  same  subject  by  Thomas  de  Elm- 
ham,^  Prior  of  Linton,  whose  barbarous  style  does  not  prevent  his 
performance  from  being  one  of  great  historical  value.  The  Italian 
affects  to  imitate  the  style  of  the  illustrious  ancient  whose  name  he 
assumes ;  but  he  is,  as  may  be  supposed,  a  very  modern  Livy. 
Another  of  these  annalists  is  William  Botoner,  or  William  of 
Worcester,  the  author  of  a  chronicle  extending  from  1324  to  1491, 
which  is  nearly  all  a  compilation,  and  of  very  little  value. ^  Botoner 
is  also  the  author  of  the  translation  of  Cicero's  Treatise  on  Old 
Age,  already  mentioned  as  one  of  Caxton's  publications.  The  last 
of  this  class  of  writers  we  shall  mention  is  John  Rossus,  or  Rouse, 
of  Warwick,  the  author  of  what  he  calls  a  History  of  the  Kings  of 
England,*  wliich,  nevertheless,  commences  with  the  creation  of  tho 
world.  Althouo-h  it  does  not  contain  much  that  is  interestino;  till 
the  author  comes  down  to  his  own  age,  the  latter  part  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  it  furnishes  some  curious  details  both  of  the  events 
and  the  manners  of  that  time. 


FRENCH   CHRONICLERS. 

Two  French  writers,  Monstrelet  and  Comines,  may  be  considered 
as  in  some  sort  belonging  to  this  period  of  P^nglish  history.  Mon- 
strelet, whose  narrative  extends  from  1400  to  1452  (with  a  supple- 
ment coming  down  to  1467  by  another  hand),  is  a  very  faithful 
but  not  a  very  lively  chronicler  of  the  contentions  of  the  houses  of 
Orleans  and  Burgundy,  and  of  the  wars  of  the  English  in  France, 
ill  his  own  day.     Comines,  an  actor  to  a  considerable  extent  in  the 

1  Pnblishocl  by  Hearne,  8vo.  Oxon.  1716. 
'^  Ibid.  1727. 

'  Publislied  by  Ilearne,  in  tlie  Appendix  to  tiie  Liber  Niger  Seaccarii,  2  vols.  8va 
Oxon.  1728. 
*  Published  by  Hearne,  Svo.  Oxon.  1716 


ENGLISH   CHRONICLERS.  395 

aifairs  which  he  relates,  is  a  writer  of  a  superior  stamp.  His 
Memoirs  extend  from  1464  to  1498,  a  period  comprehending  nearly 
the  whole  reign  of  Louis  XI.  of  France,  whom  Comines  may  be 
said  to  make  his  hero,  and  whose  singular  character  gives  much  of 
a  dramatic  life  to  the  narrative  of  the  historian.  Comines  has  none 
of  the  chivalrous  enthusiasm  of  Froissart,  and  no  other  excitement 
of  a  very  warm  or  imaginative  character  to  make  up  for  the  want 
of  it ;  but  observation,  sagacity,  and  an  unaffected,  straightforward 
way  of  writing,  give  him  a  great  power  of  carrying  his  reader  along 
with  him.  He  is  the  best  authority  for  the  French  transactions  of 
the  reio-n  of  our  Edward  IV. 


ENGLISH   CHRONICLERS. 

This  ao-e  also  affords  us  two  or  three  English  chroniclers.  The 
series  of  our  modern  English  chronicles  may  perhaps  be  most  prop- 
erly considered  as  commencing  with  John  de  Trevisa's  translation 
of  Higden,  with  various  additions,  which,  as  already  mentioned,  was 
finished  in  1387,  and  was  printed,  with  a  continuation  to  1460,  by 
Caxton  in  1482.  After  Trevisa  comes  John  Harding,  who  be- 
longs to  the  fifteenth  century ;  his  metrical  Chronicle  of  England 
coming  down  to  the  reign  of  Edward  IV.^  The  metre  is  melan- 
choly enough  ;  but  the  part  of  the  work  relating  to  the  author's 
own  times  is  not  without  value.  Harding  is  chiefly  notorious  as 
the  author,  or  at  least  the  collector  and  producer,  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  charters  and  other  documents  attesting  acts  of  fealty  done 
by  the  Scottish  to  the  English  kings,  which  are  now  generally  ad- 
mitted to  be  forgeries.  Caxton  himself  must  be  reckoned  our  next 
English  chronicler,  as  the  author  both  of  the  continuation  of  Tre- 
visa and  also  of  the  concluding  part  of  the  volume  entitled  The 
Chronicles  of  England,  published  by  him  in  1480,  —  the  body  of 
which  is  translated  from  a  Latin  chronicle  by  Douglas,  a  monk  of 
Glastonbury,  who  lived  in  the  preceding  century.  Neither  of  these 
performances,  however,  is  calculated  to  add  to  the  fame  of  the  cel- 
3brated  printer.     To  this  period  we  may  also  in  part  assign  the 

1  First  printed  by  Grafton  in  1543.  The  most  recent  edition  is  that  by  Sir  H 
ElUs,  4to.  Lond.  1812. 


.396  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

better  known  Concordance  of  Histories  of  Robert  Fabyan,  citizen 
and  draper  of  London  ;  thougli  the  author  only  died  in  1512,  nor 
was  his  work  printed  till  a  few  years  later.  Fabyan's  history, 
which  begins  with  Bi'utus  and  comes  down  to  his  own  time,  is  in 
the  greater  part  merely  a  translation  from  the  preceding  chroni- 
clers ;  its  chief  value  consists  in  a  number  of  notices  it  has  pre* 
served  relating  to  the  city  of  London.^ 


BISHOP  PECOCK.  —  FORTESCUE.  — MALORY. 

Of  the  English  theological  writers  of  the  age  immediately  fol- 
lowing that  of  Wiclif,  the  most  noteworthy  is  Reynold  Pecock, 
Bishop  of  Asaph  and  afterwards  of  Chichester.  As  may  be  in- 
ferred from  these  ecclesiastical  dignities,  Pecock  was  no  Wiclifite, 
but  a  defender  of  the  established  system  both  of  doctrine  and  of 
church  government :  he  tells  us  himself,  in  one  of  his  books,  that 
twenty  years  of  his  life  had  been  spent  for  the  greater  part  in  writ- 
ing against  the  Lollards.  But,  Avhatever  effect  his  arguments  may 
have  produced  upon  those  against  whom  they  were  directed,  they 
gave  little  satisfaction  to  the  more  zealous  spirits  on  his  own  side, 
who  probably  thought  that  he  was  too  fond  of  reasoning  with  eiTors 
demanding  punishment  by  a  cautery  sharper  than  that  of  the  pen ; 
and  tlie  end  w'as  that  he  was  himself,  in  the  year  1457,  charged 
with  heresy,  and,  having  been  found  guilty,  was  first  compelled  to 
read  a  recantation,  and  to  commit  fourteen  of  his  books,  with  his 
own  hands,  to  the  flames  at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  and  then  deprived  of 
liis  bishojM'ic,  and  consigned  to  an  imprisonment  in  which  he  was 
allowed  the  use  neither  of  writing-materials  nor  of  books,  and  in 
whicli  he  is  supposed  to  have  died  about  two  years  after.  One 
especial  heresy  alleged  to  be  found  in  his  writings  was,  that  in 
regard  to  matters  of  faith  the  Church  was  not  infallible.  Bishop 
Pecock's  Life  has  been  ably  and  learnedly  written  by  the  Rev. 
John  Lewis,  to  whom  we  also  owe  biographies  of  Wiclif  and  of 
Caxton.  His  numerous  treatises  are  partly  in  English,  partly  in 
Latin.      Of  those  in  English  the  most  remarkable  is  one  entitled 

^  First  published  in  1516.     The  last  edition  is  that  of  Sir  H.  Ellis,  Lond.  4to. 
1811. 


BISHOP   PECOCK.-FORTESCUE.  397 

The  Repressor,  which  he  produced  in  1449.  A  short  specimen,  in 
which  the  spelHng,  but  only  the  spelhng,  is  modernized,  will  give 
some  notion  of  his  manner  of  writing,  and  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  language  had  been  adapted  to  prose  eloquence  or  reasoning  of 
the  more  formal  kind  in  that  ao;e  :  — 

"  Say  to  me,  good  sir,  and  answer  hereto :  when  men  of  the  country 
upland  bringen  into  London  in  Midsummer  eve  branches  of  trees  fro 
Bisliop'ii  Wood,  and  flowers  fro  the  field,  and  betaken  tho  ^  to  citizens  of 
London  for  to  therewith  array  her^  houses,  shoulden  men  of  London, 
receiving  and  taking  tho  branches  and  flowers,  say  and  hold  that  tho 
branches  grewen  out  of  the  carts  which  broughten  hem  ^  to  London,  and 
that  tho  carts  or  the  hands  of  the  bringers  weren  grounds  and  fundaments 
of  tho  branches  and  flowers  ?  God  forbid  so  little  wit  be  in  her  heads. 
Certes,  though  Christ  and  his  apostles  weren  now  living  at  London,  and 
would  bring,  so  as  is  now  said,  branches  from  Bishop's  Wood,  and  flowers 
from  the  fields,  into  London,  and  woulden  hem  deliver  to  men,  that  they 
make  therewith  her  houses  gay,  into  remembrance  of  St.  John  Baptist, 
and  of  this  that  it  was  prophesied  of  him,  that  many  shoulden  joy  of  his 
birth,  yet  tho  men  of  London,  receiving  so  tho  branches  and  flowers, 
oughten  not  say  and  feel  that  tho  branches  and  flowers  grewen  out  of 
Christ's  hands.  Tho  branches  grewen  out  of  the  boughs  upon  which  they 
in  Bisliop's  Wood  stooden,  and  tho  boughs  grewen  out  of  stocks  or 
truncheons,  and  the  truncheons  or  shafts  grewen  out  of  the  root,  and  the 
root  out  of  the  next  earth  thereto,  upon  which  and  in  which  the  root  is 
buried.  So  that  neither  the  cart,  neither  the  hands  of  the  bringers,  neither 
tho  bringers  ben  the  grounds  or  fundaments  of  tho  branches." 

The  good  bishop,  Ave  see,  has  a  popular  and  lively  as  well  as 
clear  and  precise  Avay  of  putting  things.  It  may  be  doubted, 
nevertheless,  if  his  ingenious  illustrations  would  be  quite  as  con- 
vincing to  the  earnest  and  excited  innovators  to  whom  they  wei-e 
addressed  as  they  were  satisfiictory  to  himself. 

Another  eminent  English  prose-writer  of  this  date  was  Sir  John 
Fortescue,  who  was  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench  under 
Henry  VI.,  and  to  whom  the  king  is  supposed  to  have  also  confided 
the  great  seal  at  some  time  during  his  expulsion  from  the  throne. 
Fortescue  is  the  author  of  various  treatises,  some  in  English,  some 
in  Latin,  most  of  which,  however,  still  remain  in  manuscript.  One 
in  Latin,  which  was  first  sent  to  press  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII., 
and  has  been  repeatedly  reprinted  since,  is  commonly  referred  to 

^  Take  them,  or  those.  2  Their.  3  Thera. 


B98  ENGLISFI    LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

under  the  title  of  De  Laiulibus  Legum  Angli^e.  It  has  also  been 
several  times  translated  into  English.  This  treatise  is  drawn  up 
in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  the  author  and  Henry's  unfor- 
tunate son,  Edjvard  Prince  of  Wales,  so  barbarously  put  to  death 
after  the  battle  of  Tewkesbury.  Fortescue's  only  English  work 
that  has  been  printed  was  probably  written  at  a  later  date,  and 
would  appear  to  have  had  for  its  object  to  secure  for  him,  now  that 
the  Lancastrian  cause  was  beaten  to  the  ground,  the  favor. of  the 
Yorkist  king,  Edward  IV.  It  was  first  published,  in  1714,  by 
Mr.  John  Fortescue  Aland,  of  the  Middle  Temple,  with  the  title 
of  The  Difference  between  an  Absolute  and  Limited  ^Monarchy, 
as  it  more  particularly  regards  the  English  Constitution,  —  Avhich, 
of  course,  is  modern,  but  has  been  generally  adopted  to  designate 
the  work.  The  following  passage  (in  which  the  spelling  is  again 
reformed)  will  enable  the  reader  to  compare  Fortescue  as  a  writer 
with  his  contemporary  Pecock,  and  is  also  curious  both  for  its 
matter  and  its  spirit :  — 

And  how  so  be  it  that  tlie  French  king  reigneth  upon  his  people  dominio 
regali,  yet  St.  LeAvis,  sometime  king  there,  ne  any  of  his  predecessors  set 
never  tallies  ne  other  impositions  upon  the  people  of  that  land  without  the 
consent  of  the  three  estates,  which,  when  they  may  be  assembled,  are  like 
to  the  court  of  Parliament  in  England.  And  this  order  kept  many  of 
his  successors  till  late  days,  that  Englishmen  kept  such  a  Avar  in  France 
that  the  three  estates  durst  not  come  together.  And  tlien,  for  that  cause, 
and  for  great  necessity  which  the  French  king  had  of  goods  for  the  defence 
of  that  land,  he  took  upon  liim  to  set  tallies  and  other  impositions  upon 
the  commons  without  the  assent  of  the  three  estates  ;  but  yet  he  would 
not  set  any  such  charges,  nor  hath  set,  upon  the  nobles,  for  fear  of  rebellion. 
And,  because  the  commons,  though  they  have  grudged,  have  not  rebelled, 
nor  be  hardy  to  rebel,  the  French  kings  have  yearly  sithen  ^  set  such 
charges  upon  them,  and  so  augmented  the  same  charges  as  the  same, 
commons  be  so  impoverished  and  desti'oyed  that  they  may  uneath  ^  live. 
They  drink  water,  they  eat  apples,  with  bread,  right  brown,  made  of  rye. 
They  eat  no  flesh,  but  if  it  be  sclden  '  a  little  lard,  or  of  the  entrails  or. 
heads  of  beasts  slain  for  the  nobhss  and  merchants  of  the  land.  They  Avear 
no  AvooUcn,  but  if  it  be  a  poor  coat  under  their  uttermost  garment,  made  of 
great  canvas,  and  passen  not  their  knee  ;  wherefore  they  be  gartered  and 
their  tln'ghs  bare.  Their  AviA'es  and  children  gone  barefoot.  They  may  in 
none  otherwise  live  ;  for  some  of  them  that  Avas  Avont  to  pay  to  his  land 

1  Since.  ^  Scarcely,  with  dlfSculty  (uiiciisilj). 

^  Seldom,  on  rare  occasions. 


SIR  JOHN   FORTESCUE.  — MALORY.  399 

Jord  for  his  tenement  which  he  hireth  by  the  year  a  scute  ^  payeth  now  to 
the  king,  over  -  that  scute,  five  scutes.  Where-through  they  be  artied ' 
by  necessity,  so  to  watch,  hibour,  and  grub  in  the  ground  for  their  sus- 
tenance, that  their  nature  is  much  wasted,  and  the  kind  of  them  brought 
to  nought.  They  gone  crooked,  and  are  feeble,  not  able  to  fight  nor  to 
defend  the  realm ;  nor  have  they  weapon,  nor  money  to  buy  them  weapon, 
withal ;  but  verily  they  live  in  the  most  extreme  poverty  and  misery ; 
and  yet  they  dwell  in  one  of  the  most  fertile  realms  of  the  world.  Where- 
through the  Fi'ench  king  hath  not  men  of  his  own  realm  able  to  defend 
it,  except  his  nobles,  which  bearen  not  such  impositions,  and  therefore  they 
are  right  likely  of  their  bodies ;  by  which  cause  the  king  is  compelled  to 
make  his  armies,  and  retinues  for  defence  of  his  land,  of  strangers,  as 
Scots,  Spaniards,  Aragoners,  men  of  Almayne,*  and  of  other  nations  ;  else 
all  his  enemies  might  overrun  him  ;  for  he  hath  no  defence  of  his  own, 
except  his  castles  and  fortresses.     Lo !  this  the  fruit  of  his  jus  regale. 

It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  the  patriotic  chief  justice  elscAvhere 
boasts,  that  there  were  more  Enghshmen  hanged  for  robbery  in 
one  year  than  Frenchmen  in  seven,  and  that  "  if  an  Englishman 
be  poor,  and  see  another  having  riches  which  may  be  taken  from 
him  by  might,  he  will  not  spare  to  do  so." 

Fortescue  was  probably  born  not  much  more  than  thirty  years 
after  Pecock  ;  but  the  English  of  the  judge,  in  vocabulary,  in 
grammatical  forms,  in  the  modulation  of  the  sentences,  and  in  its 
air  altogether,  might  seem  to  exhibit  quite  another  stage  of  the 
language. 

Although  both  Pecock  and  Fortescue  lived  to  see  the  great 
invention  of  printing,  and  the  latter  at  any  rate  survived  the  intro- 
duction of  the  new  art  into  his  native  country,  no  production  of 
either  appears  to  have  been  given  to  the  world  through  the  press 
in  the  lifetime  of  the  writer.  Perhaps  this  was  also  the  case  with 
another  prose-writer  of  this  date,  who  is  remembered,  however, 
less  by  his  name  than  by  the  work  of  which  he  is  the  author,  and 
which  still  continues  to  be  read,  the  famous  history  of  King  Arthur, 
commonly  known  under  the  name  of  the  Morte  Arthur.  This 
work  was  first  printed  by  Caxton  in  the  year  1485.  He  tells  us 
in  his  prologue,  or  preface,  that  the  copy  Avas  given  him  by  Sir 
Thomas  Malory,  Knight,  who  took  it,  out  of  certain  books  in 
French,  and  reduced  it   into  English.     Malory  himself  states  al 

^  An  e.icut,  or  ecu  {d'or},  about  three  shillings  and  fourpence. 

^  In  addition  to,  over  and  above.  **  Compelled.  *  Gernianj . 


400  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  end,  that  he  finished  his  task  in  the  ninth  year  of  King  Edward 
lY.,  which  would  be  in  l-tGO  or  1470.  The  Morte  Arthur  was 
several  times  reprinted  in  the  course  of  the  following  century  and 
a  half,  the  latest  of  the  old  editions  having  appeared  in  a  quarto 
volume  in  1634.  From  this,  two  reprints  were  brought  out  by- 
different  London  booksellers  in  the  same  year,  1816 ;  one  in  three 
duodecimos,  the  other  in  two.^  But  the  standard  modern  edition 
is  that  Mliich  appeared  in  two  volumes  quarto  in  the  following 
year,  1817,  exactly  reprinted  fi-om  Caxton's  original  edition,  with 
the  title  of  The  B^Ttll,  L\'fe,  and  Actes  of  Kyng  Arthur  ;  of  his 
noble  Knyghtes  of  the  Rounde  Table,  &c.,  with  an  Introduction 
and  Notes,  by  Robert  Southey.  Malory,  whoever  he  may  have 
been  (Leland  says  he  was  Welsh),  and  supposing  him  to  have 
been  in  the  main  only  a  translator,  must  be  admitted  to  show  con- 
siderable masterv  of  expression  ;  his  English  is  always  animated 
and  flowing,  and,  in  its  earnestness  and  tenderness,  occasionally 
rises  to  no  common  beauty  and  eloquence.  The  concluding  chap- 
ters in  particular  have  been  much  admired.  \Ve  extract  a  few 
sentences :  — 

Tlicn  Sir  Lancelot,  ever  after,  eat  but  little  meat,  nor  drank,  but  con- 
tinually mourned  until  he  was  dead  :  and  then  he  sickened  more  and  more, 
and  dried  and  dwindled  away.  For  the  bishop,  nor  none  of  hi?  fellows, 
might  not  make  him  to  eat,  and  little  he  drank,  that  he  was  soon  waxed 
shorter  by  a  cubit  than  he  was,  that  the  people  could  not  know  him.  For 
evermore  day  and  night  he  prayed  [taking  no  rest],  but  needfully  as  nature 
required;  sometimes  he  slumbei-ed  a  broken  sleep;  and  always  he  was 
lying  grovelling  upon  King  Arthur's  and  Queen  Guenevers  tomb  ;  and 
there  was  no  comfort  that  the  bishop,  nor  Sir  Bors,  not  none  of  all  his  fel- 
lows could  mp.ke  him  ;  it  availed  nothing. 

Oh !  ve  mighty  and  pompous  lords,  winning  in  tlie  glorious  transitory 
of  this  unstable  life,  as  in  reigning  over  great  realms  and  mighty  great 
countries,  fortified  with  strong  castles  and  towers,  edified  witli  many  a  rich 
city;  yea  also,  ve  fierce  and  mighty  knights,  so  valiant  in  adventurous  deeds 
of  arms,  behold !  behold !  see  how  this  mighty  conquei-oi\  King  Arthur, 
whom  in  his  human  life  all  the  world  doubted.-  yea  also  tlie  noble  Queen 
Guenever,  which  sometime  sat  in  her  chair  adorned  with  gold,  pearls,  and 
precious  stones,  now  lie  full  low  in  obscure  foss,  or  pit.  covered  with  clods 

1  In  Mr.  Bohn's  new  edition  of  Lowndes's  "  Bibliographer's  Miuiual "  it  is  stated 
.hat  the  fonmr  was  edited  by  Haslewood.  Shoidd  it  not  be  the  fatter  ?  It  is  the 
more  correct  of  tlio  two,  and  forms  part  of  the  series  known  as  Walher's  Classics. 

2  Dreaded  (held  as  redoubtable). 


SIR  THOMAS   MALORY.  401 

of  earth  and  claj  !  Behold  also  this  mighty  champion,  Sir  Lancelot, 
peerless  of  all  knighthood  ;  see  now  how  he  lieth  grovelling  upon  the  cold 
moidd ;  now  being  so  feeble  and  faint,  that  sometime  was  so  terrible : 
how,  and  in  what  manner,  ought  ye  to  be  so  desirous  of  worldly  honour  so 
dangerous  ?  Therefore,  me  thinketh  this  present  book  is  right  necessary 
often  to  be  read ;  for  in  all  ^  ye  find  the  most  gracious,  knightly,  and  vir  • 
tuous  war,  of  the  most  noble  knights  of  the  world,  whereby  they  got  prais«- 
ing  continually ;  also  me  seemeth,  by  the  oft  reading  thereof,  ye  shall 
greatly  desire  to  accustom  yourself  in  following  of  those  gracious  knightly 
deeds ;  that  is  to  say,  to  dread  God  and  to  love  righteousness,  faithfully 
and  courageously  to  serve  your  sovereign  prince ;  and,  the  more  that  God 
hath  given  you  the  triumphal  honour,  the  meeker  ought  ye  to  be,  ever 
fearing  the  unstableness  of  this  deceitful  world. 

And  so,  within  fifteen  days,  they  came  to  Joyous  Guard,  and  there  they 
laid  his  corpse  in  the  body  of  the  quire,  and  sung  and  read  many  psaltei-s 
and  prayers  over  him  and  about  him ;  and  even  his  visage  was  laid  open 
and  naked,  that  all  folk  might  behold  him.  For  such  was  the  custom  in 
those  days,  that  all  men  of  worehip  should  so  lie  with  open  visage  till  that 
they  were  buried.  And  right  thus  as  they  were  at  their  service  there 
came  Sir  Ector  de  Maris,  that  had  sought  seven  years  all  England,  Scot- 
land, and  Wales,  seeking  his  brother  Sir  Lancelot.  .  .  . 

And  then  Sir  Ector  threw  his  shield,  his  sword,  and  his  hehn  from  him ; 
and  when  he  beheld  Sir  Lancelot's  visage,  he  fell  do'wn  in  a  swoon ;  and, 
when  he  awoke,  it  were  hard  for  any  tongue  to  tell  the  doleful  complaints 
that  he  made  for  his  brother.  "Ah,  Sir  Lancelot,"  said  he,  "  thou  wert 
head  of  all  Christian  knights."  —  "  And  now,  I  dare  say,"  said  Sir  Bors, 
"  that  Sir  Lanct^lot,  there  thou  liest,  thou  wert  never  matched  of  none 
earthly  knight's  hands.  And  thou  wert  the  courtliest  knight  that  ever 
bare  shield  ;  and  thou  wert  the  truest  fi-iend  to  thy  lover  that  ever  bestrode 
horse ;  and  thou  wert  the  truest  lover,  of  a  sinful  man,  that  ever  loved 
woman  ;  and  thou  wert  the  kindest  man  that  ever  stroke  with  sword  ;  and 
thou  Avert  the  goodliest  person  that  ever  came  among  press  of  knights  ; 
and  thou  wert  the  meekest  man,  and  the  gentlest,  that  ever  eat  in  hall 
among  ladies  ;  and  thou  weit  the  sternest  knight  to  thy  mortal  foe  that 
ever  put  spear  in  rest." 

1  Itl 

VOL.   I.  61 


402  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


ENGLISH   POETS.  — OCCLEVE;   LYDGATE. 

The  most  numerous  class  of  writers  in  the  mother-tono;ue 
belonging  to  this  time  are  the  poets,  by  courtesy  so  called.  We 
must  refer  to  the  learned  and  curious  pages  of  Warton,  or  to  the 
still  more  elaborate  researches  of  Ritson,'  for  the  names  of  a  crowd 
of  Avorthless  and  forgotten  versifiers  that  fill  up  tlie  annals  of  our 
national  minstrelsy  from  Chaucer  to  Lord  Surrey.  Tlie  last-men- 
tioned antiqviary  has  furnished  a  Ust  of  about  seventy  English  poets 
who  flourished  in  this  interval.  The  first  known  writer  of  any 
considerable  quantity  of  verse  after  Chaucer  is  Tliomas  Occleve. 
Warton  places  him  about  the  year  1420.  He  is  tlie  author  of 
many  minor  pieces,  Avhich  mostly  remain  in  manuscript, — ^although 
"  six  of  peculiar  stupidity,"  says  Ritson,  "  were  selected  and  pub- 
lished "  by  Dr.  Askew  in  1796 :  —  and  also  of  a  hmger  p'lem,  en- 
titled De  Regimine  Principum  (On  the  Government  of  Princes), 
chiefly  founded  on  a  Latin  work,  with  the  same  title,  written  in 
the  thirteenth  century  by  an  Italian  ecclesiastic  Egidius,  styled  the 
Doctor  Fundatissimus,  and  on  the  Latin  treatise  on  the  game  of 
chess  of  Jacobus  de  Casulis,  another  Italian  writer  of  the  same 
ap-e,  —  the  latter  beino-  the  oriuinal  of  the  Game  of  the  Chess, 
translated  by  Caxton  from  the  French,  and  printed  by  him  in 
1474.  Occleve's  poem  has  never  been  published  —  and  is  chiefly 
remembered  for  a  drawing  of  Chaucer  by  the  hand  of  Occleve, 
which  is  foimd  in  one  of  the  manuscrij^ts  of  it  now  in  the  British 
Museum.^  Occleve  repeatedly  speaks  of  Chaucer  as  his  master 
and  poetic  father,  and  was  no  doubt  personally  acquainted  with  the 
great  poi't.  All  that  Occleve  appears  to  have  gained,  however, 
from  his  admirable  model  is  some  initiation  in  that  smoothness  and 
regularity  of  diction  of  which  Chaucer's  writings  set  the  first  great 
example.  His  own  endowment  of  poetical  power  and  feeling  was 
verysmnll,  —  the  very  titles  of  his  pieces,  as  Warton  remarks,  in- 
dicating the  ])overty  and  frigidity  of  his  genius. 

By  far  the  most  famous  of  th;^'•e  versifiers  of  the  fifteenth  crn> 
tury  is  John  Lydgate,  the  monk  of  Bury,  wlfm   the   Historian   of 

1  Bibliofrnipliia  Poetica. 

2  Hatl.  iMS.  48C)G.  Tliis  portrait,  which  is  a  half-length,  is  colored.  There  is  a 
full-leiiRtli  jiortrait  in  anotlier  copy  of  Occleve's  Poems  in  Royal  MS.  17  I),  vi.  - 
See  Life  of  Chaucer,  by  Sir  Harris  Nicolas,  pp.  104,  &c. 


SCOTTISH   POETS.  -  WYNTON.  408 

our  Poetry  considers  to  have  arrived  at  his  highest  point  of  emi- 
nence about  the  year  1430.  Ritson  has  given  a  list  of  about  250 
poems  attributed  to  Lydgate.  Indeed  he  seems  to  have  follov^ed 
the  manufacture  of  rhymes  as  a  sort  of  trade,  furnishhig  any  quan- 
tity to  order  whenever  he  was  called  upon.  On  one  occasion,  foi 
instance,  we  find  him  employed  by  the  historian  Whethamstede, 
who  was  abbot  of  St.  Albans,  to  make  a  translation  into  English, 
for  the  use  of  that  convent,  of  the  Latin  legend  of  its  patron  saint. 
"  The  chronicler  who  records  a  part  of  this  anecdote,"  observes 
Warton,  "  seems  to  consider  Lydgate's  translation  as  a  matter  of 
mere  manual  mechanism  ;  for  he  adds,  that  Whethamstede  paid  for 
the  translation,  the  writing,  and  illuminations,  one  hundred  shil- 
lings." ^  Lydgate,  however,  though  excessively  diffuse,  and  pos- 
sessed of  verj'-  little  strength  or  originality  of  imagination,  is  a 
considerably  livelier  and  more  expert  writer  than  Occleve.  His 
memory  was  also  abundantly  stored  with  the  learning  of  his  age  ; 
he  had  travelled  in  France  and  Italy,  and  was  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  literature  of  both  these  countries ;  and  his  English  makes 
perhaps  a  nearer  approach  to  the  modern  form  of  the  language  than 
that  of  any  preceding  writer.  His  best-known  poem  consists  of 
nine  books  of  Tragedies,  as  he  entitles  them,  respecting  the  falls 
of  princes,  translated  from  a  Latin  work  of  Boccaccio's :  it  was 
printed  at  London  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  A  Selection  from 
the  Minor  Poems  of  Dan  John  Lydgate,  edited  by  Mr.  Halliwell, 
has  been  printed  for  the  Percy  Society,  8vo.  Loud.  1840. 


SCOTTISH  POETS.  —  WYNTON ;    JAMES   1;    HENRYSON;    HOI^ 
LAND;   BLIND   HENRY. 

The  most  remarkable  portion  of  our  poetical  literature  beiungmg 
to  the  fifteenth  century  (as  also,  we  shall  presently  find,  of  that 
belonging  to  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth)  was  contributed  by 
Scottish  writers.  The  earliest  successor  of  Barbour  was  Andrew 
of  Wyntown,  or  Wynton,  a  canon  regular  of  the  Priory  of  St. 
Andrews,  and  Prior  of  the  Monastery  of  St.  Serf's  Inch  in  Loch- 
leven,  one  of  the  establishments  subordinate  to  that  great  house, 

1  Hist.  Eng.  Poetry,  vol.  ii.  p.  363. 


404  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

who  is  supposed  to  have  been  born  about  1350,  and  whose  Originale 
Cronykil  of  Scotland  appears  to  have  been  finished  in  the  first 
years  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  is  a  long  poem,  of  nine  books, 
written  in  the  same  octosyllabic  rhyme  with  the  Bruce  of  Barbour, 
to  which  it  was  no  doubt  intended  to  serve  as  a  kind  of  introduc- 
tion. Wynton,  however,  has  very  little  of  the  old  archdeacon's 
poetic  force  and  fervor ;  and  even  his  style,  though  in  general  suf- 
ficiently simple  and  clear,  is,  if  anything,  rather  ruder  than  that  of 
his  predecessor,  —  a  difference  which  is  probably  to  be  accounted 
for  by  Barbour's  frequent  residences  in  England  and  more  ex- 
tended intercourse  with  the  world.  The  Cronykil  is  principally 
interesting  in  an  historical  point  of  view,  and  in  that  respect  it  is 
of  considerable  value  and  authority,  for  Wynton,  besides  his  merits 
as  a  distinct  narrator,  had  evidently  taken  great  pains  to  obtain  the 
best  information  within  his  reach  with  regard  to  the  events  both  of 
his  own  and  of  precechng  times.  The  work  begins  (as  was  then 
the  fashion)  with  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  comes  down  to 
the  year  1408  ;  but  the  first  five  books  are  occuj^ed  rather  with 
general  than  with  Scottish  history.  The  last  four  books,  together 
with  such  parts  of  the  preceding  ones  as  contain  anything  relating 
to  British  affairs,  were  very  carefldly  edited  by  the  late  Mr.  David 
Macpherson  (the  author  of  the  well-ki-own  Annals  of  Commerce 
and  other  Avorks),  in  two  volumes,  8vo.  Lon.  1795.  It  is  deserv- 
ing of  notice  that  a  considerable  portion  of  Wynton's  Chronicle  is 
not  his  own  composition,  but  was  the  contribution  of  another  con- 
temporary poet ;  namely,  all  from  the  19th  chapter  of  the  Eighth 
to  the  10th  chapter  of  the  Ninth  Book  inclusive,  comprising  the 
space  from  1324  to  1390,  and  forming  about  a  third  of  the  four 
concluding  books.  This  he  conscientiously  acknowledges,  in  very 
careful  and  explicit  terms,  both  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the 
insertion.  We  may  give  what  he  says  in  the  latter  place,  as  a  short 
sajuple  of  his  style  :  — 

This  part  last  treated  beforn, 
Fra  Davy  the  Brus  our  king  wes  born, 
While  '  his  sister  son  Robert 
The  Second,  our  king,  than  called  Stuert, 
That  nest  -  him  reigned  successive, 
His  days  had  ended  of  his  live, 
Wit  ye  well,  wes  nought  my  dite  ;  ' 
1  Till.  2  Next.  8  Writing. 


JAMES  I.   OF   SCOTLAND.  40c 

Thereof  I  dare  me  well  acquite. 

Wha  that  it  dited,  nevertheless, 

He  showed  him  of  mair  cunnandness 

Than  me  commendis  ^  his  treatise, 

But  ^  favour,  wha  ^  will  it  clearly  prize. 

Tliis  part  wes  written  to  me  send ; 

And  I,  that  thought  for  to  mak  end 

Of  that  purpose  I  took  on  hand, 

Saw  it  was  well  accordand 

To  my  matere  ;  I  wes  right  glad  ; 

For  I  was  in  my  travail  sad  ; 

I  eked  ^  it  here  to  this  dite, 

For  to  mak  me  some  respite. 

This  is  interesting  as  making  it  probable  that  poetical,  or  at  least 
metrical,  composition  in  the  national  dialect  was  common  in  Scot- 
land at  this  early  date. 

Of  all  our  poets  of  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
one  of  greatest  eminence  must  be  considered  to  be  King  James  I. 
of  Scotland,  even  if  he  be  only  the  author  of  The  King's  Quair 
(that  is,  the  King's  quire  or  hoolt),  his  claim  to  which  has  scarcely 
been  disputed.  It  is  a  serious  poem,  of  nearly  1400  lines,  arranged 
in  seven-line  stanzas ;  the  style  in  great  part  allegorical ;  the  sub- 
ject, the  love  of  the  royal  poet  for  the  Lady  Joanna  Beaufort,  whom 
he  eventually  married,  and  whom  he  is  said  to  have  first  beheld 
walking  in  the  garden  below  from  the  window  of  his  prison  in  the 
Hound  Tower  of  Windsor  Castle.  The  poem  was  in  all  probabil- 
ity written  during  his  detention  in  England,  and  previous  to  his 
marriage,  which  took  place  in  February  1424,  a  few  months  be- 
fore his  return  to  his  native  country.  In  the  concluding  stanza 
James  makes  grateful  mention  of  his 

maisters  dear 
Gower  and  Chaucei',  that  on  the  steppes  sate 
Of  rhetorick  while  they  were  livand  here, 
Superlative  as  poets  laureate. 
Of  morality  and  eloquence  ornate  ; 

and  he  is  evidently  an  imitator  of  the  great  father  of  English  poe- 
try.    The  poem  too  must  be  regarded  as  written  in  English  rather 

1  He  showed  himself  of  more  cunning  (skill)  than  I  who  commend. 

2  Without.  3  Whosoever.  ■*  Added. 


406  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

than  in  Scotch,  although  the  difference  between  the  two  dialects,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  not  so  great  at  this  early  date  as  it  afterwards 
became,  and  although  James,  who  was  in  his  eleventh  year  wdien 
he  was  carried  away  to  England  in  1405  by  Henry  IV.,  may  not 
have  altogether  avoided  the  peculiarities  of  his  native  idiom.  The 
Quair  was  first  published  fi^om  the  only  manuscript  (one  of  the 
Selden  Collection  in  the  Bodleian  Library),  by  Mr.  W.  Tytler  at 
Edinburgh,  in  1783 ;  there  have  been  several  editions  since.  The 
following  specimen  is  transcribed  fi'om  the  text  given  by  Mr.  George 
Chalmers,  in  his  Poetic  Remains  of  some  of  the  Scottish  Kings, 
now  first  collected,  8vo.  Lon.  1824  ;  though  without  adhering  in 
all  cases  either  to  his  spelling,  his  pointing,  or  liis  explanations :  — 

Where  as  in  ward  full  oft  I  would  bewail 
My  deadly  life,  full  of  pain  and  penance, 

Sajang  right  thus,  What  have  I  guilt  to  fail* 
My  freedom  in  this  world  and  ray  pleasance  ? 
Sen  ^  every  wight  has  thereof  suffisance 

That  I  behold,  and  I  a  creature 

Put  from  all  this,  hard  is  mme  aventure.^ 

The  bird,  the  beast,  the  fish  eke  in  the  sea, 
They  live  in  freedom  everich  in  his  kind, 

And  I  a  man,  and  lackoth  liberty  ! 

What  shall  I  sayn,  what  reason  may  I  find, 
That  fortune  should  do  so  ?     Thus  in  my  mind 

My  folk  I  would  argue ;  *  but  all  for  nought ; 

Was  none  that  might  that  on  my  paines  wrought.^ 

Then  would  I  say,  Gif  God  me  had  devised 
To  live  my  life  in  thraldom  thus  and^pine, 

What  was  the  cause  that  he  more  me  comprised  * 
Than  other  folk  to  live  in  such  ruine  ? 
I  suffer  alone  among  the  figures  nine  ;'' 

1  What  guilt  have  I  (what  have  I  been  guilty  of)  so  that  I  should  want  (be 
deprived  of). 

-  Since.  ^  Hap,  lot,  fate. 

*  According  to  Chalmers  this  means,  "I  would  argue  with  my  attendants — tha 
Earl  of  Orkney  and  others  of  his  train."  We  suspect  tiie  word  folk  to  be  a  mis- 
transcription —  perhaps  for  fnte. 

^  There  was  no  one  that  might  do  what  had  any  effect  in  relieving  my  suffer 
mgs  1  —  if  tlie  line  be  not  corrupt. 

''  Doomed,  forced  (compressed). 

"  "  Of  all  the  nine  numbers  mine  is  the  most  unlucky."-    Chalmers. 


JAMES  I.   OF   SCOTLAND.  407 

Ane  woeful  wretch,  that  to  no  wight  may  speed,* 
And  yet  of  every  lives  ^  help  has  need  ! 

The  longe  days  and  the  nightes  eke 

I  would  bewail  my  fortune  in  this  wise  ; 
For  which  again  ^  distress  comfort  to  seek 

My  custom  was  on  mornes  for  to  rise, 

Early  as  day  ;  O  happy  exercise  ! 
By  thee  came  I  to  joy  out  of  torment :  — 
But  now  to  purpose  of  my  first  intent. 

Bewailing  in  my  chamber  thus  alone, 
Despaired  of  all  joy  and  remedy, 

Fortirit  *  of  my  thought  and  woe-begone, 
And  to  the  window  gan  I  walk  in  hy  ^ 
To  see  the  world  and  folk  that  went  foi'by,' 

As,  for  the  time  though  I  of  mirthes  food 

Might  have  no  more,  to  look  it  did  me  good. 

Now  was  there  made,  fast  by  the  Toures  wall, 
A  garden  fair,  and  in  the  corners  set 

Ane  herber'^  green,  with  wandes  long  and  small 
Railed  about ;  and  so  with  trees  set, 
Was  all  the  place,  and  hawthorn  hedges  knet,* 

That  life  ^  was  none  walking  there  forby 

That  might  within  scarce  any  wight  espy. 

So  thick  the  bewes  ^°  and  the  leaves  green 
Beshaded  all  the  alleys  that  there  were, 

And  middes  ^^  every  herber  might  be  seen 
The  sharpe,  greene,  sweete  juniper. 
Growing  so  fair  with  branches  here  and  there, 

That,  as  it  seemed  to  a  life  without. 

The  bewes  spread  the  herber  all  about. 

And  on  tlie  smale  greene  twistes  sate 
The  little  sweete  nightingale,  and  sung 

1  To  no  man  may  do  service.  ^  Living  person.  ^  AgainsV 

*  Tired.  The  termination  here  is  Scotch.  The  MS.  appears  to  have  been  vrritr 
ten  in  Scotland.     Otlier  printed  editions  have  Fortired. 

^  Haste.  ^  Past  ■?     "  Forby  "  in  modern  Scotch  means  besides. 

■?  Ellis  says,  "  probably  an  arbor  "  : — Chalmers,  "  a  garden  plot  set  with  plants 
and  flowers ;  a  grove  with  an  arbor  railed  with  trellis-work,  and  close  set  aboul 
with  trees." 

8  Knit.  8  Living  person.  i°  Boughs.  "  Amidst 


408  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE, 

So  loud  and  clear  the  hymnes  consecrate 

Of  loves  use,  now  soft  now  loud  among, 

That  all  the  gardens  and  tlie  walles  rung 

Right  of  their  song  and  on  the  couple  next  * 

Of  their  sweet  harmony  ;  and  lo  the  text :  — 

Worshippe,  ye  that  lovers  been,  this  May, 

For  of  your  bliss  the  kalends  are  begun, 
And  sing  with  us,  Away,  winter,  away  ! 

Come  summer,  come,  tlie  sweet  season  and  sun  ; 

Awake,  for  shame  !   that  have  your  heavens  won,' 
And  amorously  lift  up  your  heades  all ; 
Hark  Love,  that  list  you  to  his  mercy  call. 

The  description  of  the  lady  whom  he  afterwards  sees  "  walking 
under  the   Tower,"  —  at  whose    sudden    apparition,   "anon,"  he 

says,  — 

—  "  astart  ^ 
The  blood  of  all  my  body  to  my  heart "  — 

is  exceedingly  elaborate,  but  is  too  long  to  be  quoted.  Ellis  has 
given  the  greater  part  of  it  in  his  Specimens.*  Two  other  poems 
of  considerable  length,  in  a  humorous  style,  have  also  been  attrib- 
uted to  James  I.,  —  Peebles  to  the  Play,  and  Christ's  Kirk  on  the 
Green,  both  in  the  Scottish  dialect ;  but  they  are  more  probably 
the  productions  of  his  equally  gifted  and  equally  unfortunate  de- 
scendant James  V.  (b.  1511,  d.  1542).  Chalmers,  however,  assigns 
the  former  to  James  I.  As  for  the  two  famous  comic  ballads  of 
The  Gaberlunyie  Man,  and  The  Jolly  Beggar,  which  it  has  been 
usual  among  recent  writers  to  speak  of  as  by  one  or  other  of  these 
kings,  there  seems  to  be  no  reasonable  ground  —  not  even  that  of 
tradition  of  any  antiquity  —  for  assigning  them  to  either. 

Chaucer,  we  have  seen,  appears  to  have  been  unknown  to  his 
contemporary  Barbour ;  but  after  the  time  of  James  I.  the  Scot- 
tish poetry  for  more  than  a  century  bears  evident  traces  of  the 
imitation  of  the  great  English  master.  It  was  a  consequence  of 
the  relative  circumstances  of  the  two  countries,  that,  while  the 
literature  of  Scotland,  the  poorer  and  ruder  of  the  two,  could  exert 

1  Not  undorstood.     Tytler  thinks  "  couple  "  relates  to  the  pairing  of  the  birds  ; 
Ellis  and  (^halmers,  that  it  is  a  musical  term. 
'■^  "  Ye  that  have  attained  your  highest  bliss."  —  Tytler. 
8  Started  up.  *  Vol.  i.  pp.  305-309. 


KOBERT  HENRYSON.  -  SIR  JOHN   HOLLAND.  40S 

no  influence  upon  that  of  England,  tlie  literature  of  England  couIg 
not  fail  powerfully  to  affect  and  modify  that  of  its  more  backward 
neighbor.  No  English  writer  would  think  of  studying  or  imitating 
Barbour ;  but  every  Scottish  poet  who  arose  after  the  fame  of 
Chaucer  had  passed  the  border  would  seek,  or,  even  if  he  did  not 
seek,  would  still  inevitably  catch,  some  inspiration  from  that  great 
example.  If  it  could  in  any  circumstances  have  happened  that 
Chaucer  should  have  remained  unknown  in  Scotland,  the  singular 
fortunes  of  James  I.  were  shaped  as  if  on  purpose  to  transfer  the 
manner  and  spirit  of  his  poetry  into  the  literature  of  that  country. 
From  that  time  forward  the  native  voice  of  the  Scottish  muse  was 
mixed  with  this  other  foreign  voice.  One  of  the  earliest  Scottish 
poets  after  James  I.  is  Robert  Henryson,  or  Henderson,  the  author 
of  the  beautiful  pastoral  of  Robin  and  Makyne,  which  is  popularly 
known  from  having  been  printed  by  Bishop  Percy  in  his  Reliques.-^ 
He  has  left  us  a  continuation  or  supplement  to  Chaucer's  Troilus 
and  Creseide,  which  is  commonly  printed  along  with  the  works  of 
that  poet  under  the  title  of  The  Testament  of  Fair  Creseide.  All 
that  is  known  of  the  era  of  Henryson  is  that  he  was  alive  and  very 
old  about  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  He  may  therefore 
probably  have  been  born  about  the  time  that  James  I.  returned 
from  England.  Henryson  is  also  the  author  of  a  translation  into 
English  or  Scottish  verse  of  ^sop's  Fables,  of  which  there  is  a 
MS.  in  the  Harleian  Collection  (No.  3865),  and  which  was  printed 
at  Edinburgh  in  8vo.  in  1621,  under  the  title  of  The  Moral  Fables 
of  ^sop  the  Phrygian,  compyled  into  eloquent  and  ornamental 
meter,  by  Robert  Henrison,  schoolemaster  of  Dumferling.  A 
reimpression  of  this  edition  (limited  to  68  copies)  was  executed  at 
Edinburgh,  in  4to.,  in  1832,  for  the  members  of  the  Maitland  Club. 
To  Henryson,  moreover,  as  has  been  already  noticed,  Mr.  Laing 
attributes  the  tale  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice  contained  in  the  col- 
lection of  old  poetry,  entitled  The  Knightly  Tale  of  Golagrus  and 
Gawane,  &c.,  reprinted  by  him  in  1827. 

Contemporary,  too,  with  Henryson,  if  not  perhaps  rather  before 
him,  was  Sir  John  or  Richard  Holland,  whose  poem  entitled  The 
Buke  of  the  Howlat  (that  is,  the  owl)  was  printed,  under  the  care 

1  Vol.  ii.  pp.  78-78.  It  was  first  printed  in  Ramsay's  Evergreen,  12mo.  Edin. 
1724.  (Or  see  second  edition,  Glasgow,  1824.)  It  is  also  in  Lord  Hailes's  Ancient 
Scottish  Poems  (from  tlie  Bannatyne  MS.)  8vo.  P^din.  1770.  And  an  edition  of 
this  Poem,  and  of  tlie  Testament  of  Creseide,  by  tlie  late  George  Chalmers,  was 
urinled  for  the  Bannatyne  Club,  in  4to.  at  Edinburgh,  in  1824. 
VOL.   I.  52 


410  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  Mr.  Laing,  in  4to.  at  Edinburgh  in  1823  for  the  Bannatyne  and 
Abbotsford  Clubs.  It  had  been  previously  printed,  with  less  cor- 
rectness, by  Pinkerton  in  liis  Scotish  Poems,  3  vols.  8vo.  1792  . 
and  also  in  the  first  volume  of  Sibbald's  Chronicle  of  Scottish 
Poetry,  4  vols.  8vo.  1802.  Holland's  poem,  a  wild  and  rugged 
effusion  in  alliterative  metre,  cannot  be  charged  as  an  imitation  of 
Chaucer,  or  of  any  other  English  writer  of  so  late  a  date. 

Another  Scottish  poet  of  this  time,  the  style  and  spirit  as  well 
as  the  subject  of  whose  poetry  must  be  admitted  to  be  exclusively 
national,  is  Henry  the  Minstrel,  commonly  called  Blind  Harry, 
author  of  the  famous  poem  on  the  life  and  acts  of  Wallace.  The 
testimony  of  the  historian  John  Major  to  the  time  at  which  Henry 
wrote  is  sufficiently  express  :  "  The  entire  book  of  William  Wal- 
lace," he  says,  "  Henry,  who  was  blind  from  his  birth,  composed 
in  the  time  of  my  infancy  (^nieae  infantiae  tempore  cudit'),  and  what 
things  used  popularly  to  be  reported  wove  into  popular  verse,  in 
which  he  was  skilled."  INIajor  is  believed  to  have  been  born  about 
1469  ;  so  that  Henry's  poem  may  be  assigned  to  the  end  of  the 
third  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  it  was  printed  at  Edinburgh  as  early  as  1520  ;  but  the  oldest 
impression  now  known  is  an  Edinburgh  one  in  4to.  of  the  year 
1570.  There  were  many  reprints  of  it  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  some  of  them  greatly  modernized  in  the  lan- 
o-uao-e  and  otherwise  altered :  the  standard  edition  is  that  published 
from  a  manuscript  dated  1488  by  Dr.  Jamieson  along  with  Bar- 
bour's poem,  4to.  Edin.  1820.  The  Wallace,  which  is  a  long 
poem  of  about  12,000  decasyllabic  hues,  used  to  be  a  still  greater 
favorite  than  was  The  Bruce  with  the  author's  countrymen  ;  and 
Dr.  Jamieson  does  not  hesitate  to  place  Harry  as  a  poet  before 
Barbom*.  In  this  judgment,  however,  probably  few  critical  readers 
will  concur,  although  both  Warton  and  Ellis,  without  going  so  far, 
have  also  acknowledged  in  warm  terms  the  rude  force  of  the  Blind 
Minstrel's  genius.  It  may  be  remarked,  by  the  way,  that  were  it 
not  for  Major's  statement,  and  the  common  epithet  that  has  attached 
itself  to  his  name,  we  should  scarcely  have  supposed  that  the  author 
of  Wallace  had  been  either  blind  from  his  birth  or  blind  at  all. 
He  nowhere  himself  alludes  to  any  such  circumstance.  His  poem, 
besides,  abounds  in  descriptive  passages,  and  in  allusions  to  natural 
appearances  and  other  objects  of  sight :  perhaps,  indeed,  it  might 
be  saia  that  there  is  an  ostentation  of  that  kind  of  writing,  such 


HENRY   THE   MINSTREL.  411 

as  we  meet  with  also  in  the  modern  Scotch  poet  Blacklock's  verses 
and  which  it  may  be  thought  is  not  unnatural  to  a  blind  person 
Nor  are  his  apparent  literary  acqiiirements  to  be  very  easily  recon- 
ciled with  Major's  account,  who  represents  him  as  going  about 
reciting  his  verses  among  the  nobility  (^coram  principibus^ ,  and 
thereby  obtaining  food  and  raiment,  of  which,  says  the  historian, 
he  was  worthy  (yicttim^  et  vestitum,  quo  digitus  erat^  nactus  est). 
"  He  seems,"  as  Dr.  Jamieson  observes,  "  to  have  been  pretty  well 
acquainted  with  that  kind  of  history  which  was  commonly  read  in 
that  period."  The  Doctor  refers  to  allusions  which  he  makes  in 
various  places  to  the  romance  histories  of  Hector,  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  of  Julius  Csesar,  and  of  Charlemagne  ;  and  he  conceives 
that  his  style  of  writing  is  more  richly  strewed  with  the  more 
peculiar  phraseology  of  the  writers  of  romance  than  that  of  Bar- 
bour. But  what  is  most  remarkable  is,  that  he  distinctly  declares 
his  poem  to  be  throughout  a  translation  from  the  Latin.  The 
statement,  which  occurs  toward  the  conclusion,  seems  too  express 
and  particular  to  be  a  mere  imitation  of  the  usage  of  the  romance- 
writers,  many  of  whom  appeal,  but  generally  in  very  vague  terms, 
to  a  Latin  original  for  their  marvels  :  — 

Of  Wallace  life  wha  has  a  further  feel  ^ 

May  show  furth  mair  with  wit  and  eloquence  ; 

For  I  to  this  have  done  my  diligence, 

Efter  the  proof  siven  fra  the  Latin  book 

Wliilk  Maister  Blair  in  his  time  iindertook, 

In  fair  Latin  compiled  it  till  ane  end : 

With  thir  witness  the  mair  is  to  commend.^ 

Bishop  Sinclair  than  lord  was  of  Dunkell ; 

He  gat  this  book,  and  confirmed  it  himsell 

For  very  true  ;  therefore  he  had  no  drede  ;  ^ 

Himself  had  seen  great  part  of  Wallace  deed. 

His  purpose  was  till  have  sent  it  to  Rome, 

Our  fader  of  kirk  thereon  to  give  his  doom. 

But  Maistre  Blair  and  als  Shir  Thomas  Gray 

Efter  Wallace  they  lestit  ^  mony  day : 

Thir  twa  ^  knew  best  of  Gud  Schir  William's  deed, 

Fra  sixteen  year  while  ®  nine  and  twenty  yeid.' 

1  Knowledge.  • 

2  We  do  not  profess  to  understand  this  line.     Thir  is  Scotch  for  these.     Mair  u 
war  in  Jamieson.  ^  Doubt.  *  Survived  (lasted). 

6  These  two.  «  Till.  ^  Went,  passed. 


412  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

In  another  place  (Book  V.  v.  538  et  seq.')  he  says  :  — 

Maistre  John  Blair  was  oft  in  that  message, 
A  worthy  clerk,  baith  wise  and  right  savage. 
Lewit  ^  he  was  before  in  Paris  town 
Amang  maisters  in  science  and  renown. 
Wallace  and  he  at  hame  in  scliul  had  been  : 
Soon  efterwart,  as  verity  is  seen, 
He  was  the  man  that  principal  undertook, 
That  first  compiled  in  dite  ^  the  Latin  book 
Of  Wallace  life,  right  famous  in  renown ; 
And  Thomas  Gray,  person  of  Libertown. 

Blind  Harry's  notions  of  the  literary  character  are  well  exem- 
plified by  his  phrase  of  a  "  worthy  clerk,  baith  wise  and  right 
savage."  He  himself,  let  his  scholarship  have  been  what  it  may, 
is  in  spirit  as  thorough  a  Scot  as  if  he  had  never  heard  the  sound 
of  any  other  than  his  native  tongue.  His  gruif  patriotism  speaks 
out  in  his  opening  lines  :  — 

Our  antecessors,  that  we  suld  of  read, 

Aiid  hold  in  mind  their  noble  worthy  deed, 

We  lat  owerslide,*^  through  very  sleuthfulness, 

And  casts  us  ever  till  other  business. 

Till  honour  enemies  is  our  hail  *  intent ; 

It  has  been  seen  in  thir  times  bywent : 

Our  auld  enemies  comen  of  Saxons  blud, 

That  never  yet  to  Scotland  wald  do  gud. 

But  ever  on  force  and  contrar  hail  their  will. 

How  great  kindness  there  has  been  kythe  ®  them  till. 

It  is  weil  knawn  on  mony  divers  side 

How  they  have  wrought  into  their  mighty  pride 

To  hald  Scotland  at  under  evermair  : 

But  God  above  has  made  their  might  to  pair.® 

Of  the  fighting  and  slaying,  which  makes  up  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  poem,  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  sample  that  is  short  enough 
for  our  puri)ose.  The  following  is  a  small  portion  of  what  is  called 
the  battle  of  Shortwoodshaw* :  — 

1  Dr.  Jamieson's  only  interpretation  is  "allowed,  left." 

2  Writinfj.  ^  Allow  to  slip  out  of  memory.  *  Whole. 
*  Shown.                       ^  Diminish,  impair. 


HENRY  THE  MINSTREL.  412 

On  Wallace  set  a  bicker  bauld  and  keen  ; 

A  bow  he  bare  was  big  and  well  beseen, 

And  arrows  als,  baith  lang  and  sharp  with  aw ;  * 

No  man  was  there  that  Wallace  bow  might  draw. 

Right  stark  he  was,  and  in  to  souer  gear  ;  ^ 

Bauldly  he  shot  amang  they  '  men  of  wer.* 

Ane  angel  heade  ®  to  the  huiks  he  drew 

And  at  a  shot  the  foremost  soon  he  slew. 

Inglis  archers,  that  hardy  war  and  wight, 

Amang  the  Scots  bickered  with  all  their  might ; 

Their  aweful  shot  was  felon  ®  for  to  bide  ; 

Of  Wallace  men  they  woundit  sore  that  tide  ; 

Few  of  them  was  sicker ''  of  archery  ; 

Better  they  were,  an  they  gat  even  party, 

In  field  to  bide  either  with  swerd  or  spear. 

Wallace  perceivit  his  men  tuk  mickle  deir  :^ 

He  gart  ^  them  change,  and  stand  nought  in  to  stead  ;  *' 

He  cast  all  ways  to  save  them  fra  the  dead.^^ 

Full  great  travail  upon  himself  tuk  he  ; 

Of  Southron  men  feil  ^^  archers  he  gart  dee.^^ 

Of  Longcashier  "  bowmen  was  in  that  place 

A  sair  ^^  archer  aye  waitit  on  Wallace, 

At  ane  opine,^*^  whar  he  usit  to  repair  ; 

At  him  he  drew  a  sicker  shot  and  sair 

Under  tlie  chm,  through  a  collar  of  steel 

On  the  left  side,  and  hurt  his  halse  "  some  deal. 

Astonied  he  was,  but  nought  greatly  aghast ; 

Out  fra  his  men  on  him  he  foUowit  fast ; 

In  the  turning  with  gud  will  has  him  ta'en 

Upon  the  crag,^^  in  sunder  straik  the  bain. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  specimen  that  the  Blind  Minstrel  is  a 
vigorous  versifier.  His  descriptions,  however,  though  both  clear 
and  forcible,  and  even  not  unfrequently  animated  by  a  dramatic 
abruptness   and  boldness  of   expression,  want  the   bounding  airy 

1  Dr.  Jamieson's  only  interpretation  is  owe.  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  we  had 
here  the  modern  Scottish  wiiha'  for  withall. 

-  In  sure  warlike  accoutrements.  '  Those. 

*  War.  ■     ^  The  barbed  head  of  an  arrow.  *  Terrible. 

"'  Sure.  ^  Took  much  hazard,  ran  much  risk.  ®  Caused. 

1°  Stand  not  in  their  place.     Perhaps  it  should  be  "  o  stead,"  that  is,  one  place. 
"  Death.  12  Many.  i^  Caused  die.  1*  Lancashire 

^  Skilful.  16  Open  place  ?  i^  Neck.  i**  Throat. 


414  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

spirit  and  flashing  light  of  those  of  Barbour.     As  a  specinn'n  of 
his  gi'aver  style  we  may  give  his  Envoy  or  concluding  lines :  — 

Go,  noble  book,  fulfillit  of  gud  sentence, 
Suppose  tliou  be  barren  of  eloquence  : 
Go,  worthy  book,  fulfillit  of  suthfast  deed  ; 
But  in  langage  of  help  thou  hast  gi-eat  need. 
Whan  gud  makers  ^  rang  weil  into  Scotland, 
Great  harm  was  it  that  nane  of  them  ye  fand.^ 
Yet  there  is  part  that  can  thee  weil  avance ; 
Now  bide  thy  time,  and  be  a  remembrance. 
I  you  besek  of  your  benevolence, 
Wha  will  nought  lou,*'  lak  nought  *  my  eloquence ; 
(It  is  weil  knawn  I  am  a  burel  ^  man) 
For  here  is  said  as  gudly  as  I  can  ; 
My  sprite  feeles  ne  termes  asperans.® 
Now  beseek  God,  that  giver  is  of  grace, 
Made  hell  and  erd,''  and  set  the  heaven  above, 
That  he  us  grant  of  his  dear  lestand  ^  love. 


FIRST    HALF   OF   THE    SIXTEENTH   CENTURY.  —  COLLEGES 

FOUNDED. 

In  no  age,  as  we  have  found,  even  the  darkest  and  most  barren 
of  valuable  produce,  that  has  elapsed  since  learning  was  first 
planted  among  us,  had  there  failed  to  be  something  done  in  the 
establishment  of  nurseries  for  its  shelter  and  propagation.  The 
fifteenth  century,  though  it  has  left  us  little  enduring  literature 
of  any  kind,  is  distinguished  for  the  number  of  the  colleges  that 
were  founded  in  the  course  of  it,  both  in  this  country  and  in  the 
rest  of  Europe.  This,  indeed,  was  the  natural  and  proper  direc- 
tion for  the  first  impulse  to  take  that  was  given  by  the  revival  of 
letters  :  the  actual  generation  upon  which  the  new  light  broke  was 
not  that  in  whieli  it  was  to  be  expected  it  should  do  much  more 
than  awaken  the  taste  for  true  learning,  or  at  most  the  ambition  of 

1  Poets.  2  Found.  3  Lgyg  ? 

*  Scoff'  not  at.  ^  Boorisli,  clownish. 

*  Understands  no  lofty  (aspiring)  terms.  But  it  seems  impossible  that  asperam 
can  rhyme  to  grace. 

'  Earth.  »  Lasting. 


COLLEGES  FOUNDED.  415 

excellence ;  the  power  of  accomplishment  could  onl_y  come  in  the 
next  era.  The  men  of  the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  centurr, 
therefore,  were  most  fitly  and  most  usefully  employed  in  makini^ 
provision  for  the  preservation  and  transmission  to  other  times  of 
the  long-lost  wisdom  and  eloquence  tliat  had  been  found  again  in 
their  day,  —  in  building  cisterns  and  conduits  for  the  precious 
waters  that,  after  having  been  hidden  for  a  thousand  years,  had 
burst  their  founts,  and  were  once  more  flowing  over  the  earth. 
The  fashion  of  founding  colleges,  and  other  seminaries  of  learning, 
continvied  to  prevail  in  this  country  both  down  to  the  Reformation 
in  religion,  and  for  some  time  after  that  mighty  revolution.  In 
the  University  of  Oxford,  Brazennose  College  was  fomided  in  1511 
by  William  Smith,  Bisho})  of  Lincoln,  and  Sir  Richard  Sutton,  of 
Presbury,  in  Cheshire  ;  Corpus  Christi  in  1517,  by  Henry  A^'II.'o 
minister,  Richard  Fox,  successively  Bishop  of  Exeter,  of  Bath  and 
Wells,  of  Durham,  and  of  Winchester  ;  Cardinal  College  by  Wol- 
sey  in  1525,  which,  however,  before  the  buildings  had  been  half 
finished,  was  suppressed  by  the  king  on  the  cardinal's  fall  in  1529 ; 
the  college  of  Henry  VIII.  by  that  king  in  1532,  a  continuation, 
but  on  a  nnich  smaller  scale,  of  Wolsey's  design,  Avhich  was  also 
dissolved  in  1545,  when  that  of  Christ  Church  was  erected  in  its 
stead  by  Henry,  to  be  both  a  college  and  at  the  same  time  a  cathe- 
dral establishment  for  the  new  bishopric  of  Oxford  ;  Trinity,  on 
the  old  foundation  of  Durham  College,  by  Sir  Thomas  Pope,  in 
1554  ;  St.  John's,  on  the  site  of  Bernard  College,  by  Sir  Thomas 
White,  alderman  and  merchant-tailor  of  London,  in  1557  ;  and 
Jesus,  by  Dr.  Hugh  Price,  Queen  Elizabeth  contributing  part  of 
the  expense,  in  1571.  In  Cambridge  there  were  founded  Jesus 
College,  in  1496,  by  John  Alcock,  Bishop  of  Ely  ;  Christ's  Col- 
lege, in  1505,  by  Margaret,  Countess  of  Richmond,  the  mother  of 
Henry  YII.  ;  St.  John's,  by  the  same  noble  lady,  in  1508  ;  JNIag- 
dalen,  or  Maudlin,  begun  in  1519  by  Edward  Stafford,  the  unfor- 
tunate Duke  of  Buckingham,  and,  after  his  execution  for  high 
treason  in  1521,  completed  by  the  Lord  Chancellor,  Thomas  Lord 
Audley  ;  Trinity,  in  1536,  by  Henry  VIIL,  who  at  the  same  time 
endowed  four  new  professorships  in  the  University,  one  of  theol- 
ogy, one  of  law,  one  of  Hebrew,  and  one  of  Greek  ;  Caius  Col- 
lege, properly  an  extension  of  the  ancient  foundation  of  Gonviile 
Hall,  by  Dr.  John  Caius,  or  Key,  in  1557  ;  Emanuel,  in  1584,  by 
Sir  Walter  Mildmay,  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster  and 


416  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

of  the  Exchequer  ;  and  Sidney-Sussex  College,  in  1594,  by  the 
widow  of  Thomas  Radcliffe,  Earl  of  Sussex,  originally  the  Lady 
Frances  Sidney.  In  Scotland  a  new  universit}-  was  erected  in 
Aberdeen,  under  the  name  of  King's  College,  by  a  bull  of  Pope 
Alexander  VI.,  granted  at  the  request  of  King  James  IV.,  in 
1494,  the  principal  endower,  however,  being  William  Elphin- 
stone,  bishop  of  the  see  ;  a  second  college,  that  of  St.  Leonard's 
(now  forming,  with  St.  Salvator's,  what  is  called  the  United  Col- 
lege), Avas  founded  in  the  University  of  St.  AndreAvs,  in  1512,  by 
Alexander  Stuart,  archbishop  of  the  see,  and  John  Hepburn,  prior 
of  the  metropolitan  church  ;  another  college,  that  of  St.  Mary, 
now  exclusively  appropriated  to  the  theological  faculty,,  was 
founded  in  the  same  university  in  1537,  by  Archbishop  James 
Beaton  ;  a  fourth  university,  that  of  Edinburgh,  was  erected  by 
King  James  VI.  in  1582  ;  and  a  fifth,  that  of  IVIarischal  College, 
Aberdeen,  by  George  Earl  Marischal,  in  1593.  In  Ireland,  the 
university  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  was  founded  by  Queen 
Elizabeth,  in  1591.  Along  with  these  seminaries  might  be  men- 
tioned a  great  number  of  grammar  schools  ;  of  which  the  chief 
were  that  of  St.  Paul's,  London,  founded  by  Dean  Colet,  in  1509 ; 
that  of  Ipswich,  by  Cardinal  Wolsey,  at  the  same  time  with  his 
college  at  Oxford,  the  fate  of  which  it  also  shared  ;  Christ  Church, 
London,  by  Edward  VI.,  in  1553  ;  Westminster  School,  by  Queen 
Elizabeth,  in  1560  ;  and  Merchant  Tailors'  School  by  the  London 
civic  Company  of  that  name,  in  1568.  In  Scotland,  the  High 
School  of  Edinburgh  was  founded  by  the  magistrates  of  the  city 
in  1577. 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING. 

Many  of  these  colleges  and  schools  were  expressly  established 
for  the  cultivation  of  the  newly  revived  classical  learning,  the  res- 
urrection of  which  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  revolu- 
tionized the  ancient  studies  everywhere  as  soon  as  its  influence 
came  to  be  felt.  It  scarcely  reached  England,  however,  as  we 
have  already  intimated,  till  towards  the  close  of  that  century.  In- 
deed, Greek  is  said  to  have  been  first  publicly  taught  in  this  coun- 
try in  St.  Paul's  school,  by  the  famous  grammarian  WiHiam  Lillv, 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  417 

who  had  studied  the  language  at  Rhodes,  and  who  was  appointed 
the  first  master  of  the  new  scliool  in  1512.     Dean  Colet  himself, 
the  founder,  although  accounted  one  of  the  hest-educated  men  of 
his  time,  had,  during  the  seven  years  he  spent  at  Magdalen  College, 
Oxford,  only  acquired  a  knowledge  of  some  of  the  Greek  authors 
through  the  medium  of  Latin  translations.     Among  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  the  early  patrons  of  the  new  learning  after  it  had 
been  thus  introduced  were  the  two  prelates  and  statesmen  Fox  and 
his  greater  protege,  and   successor  Wolsey,  both  of  whom,  in  the 
colleges  founded  by  them  that  have  just  been  mentioned,  made 
especial  provision  for  the  teaching  of  the  two  classic  tongues.    The 
professor  of  Latin  —  or  of  Hvimanity,  as  he   is    designated  —  in 
Corpus  Christi  College,  was  exyji'essly  enjoined  to  extirpate  hnrha- 
rism  from  the  new  society  (harhariem  a  nostra  alveario  extirpet). 
The  Greek  professor  was  ordered  to  explain  the  best  Greek  clas- 
sics ;   "  and  the  poets,  historians,  and  orators  in  that  language," 
observes   Warton,   "  which  the  judicious  founder,  who   seems  to 
have  consulted  the  most  intelligent  scholars  of  the  times,  recom- 
mends by  name  on  this  occasion,  are  the  purest,  and  such  as  are 
most  esteemed  even  in  the  present  improved  state  of  ancient  learn- 
ing." ^     Wolsey  evinced  the  interest  he  took  in  the  new  studies, 
not  only  by  his  great  school  at  Ipswich  and  his  college  at  Oxford, 
but  by  founding  in  that  university  some  years  before,  along  with 
various  other  professorships,  one  for  Rhetoric  and  Humanity  and 
another  for  Greek.     "  So  attached  was  Wolsey,"  says  the  writer 
we  have  just  quoted,  "  to  the  new  modes  of  instruction,  that  he 
did  not  think  it  inconsistent  with  his  high  office  and  rank  to  publish 
a  general  address  to  the  schoolmasters  of  England,  in  which  he 
orders  them  to  institute  their  youth  in  the  most  elegant  literature." 
And  the  high  eulogium  of  Erasmus  on  the  great  cardinal  is,  that 
"  he  recalled  to  his  country  the  three  learned  languages,  without 
which  all  learning  is  lame." 

A  violent  struggle,  however,  was  for  some  time  maintained 
against  these  innovations  by  the  generality  of  those  wlio  had  been 
educated  in  the  old  system,  and  by  the  always  numerous  and  pow- 
erful host  of  the  enemies  and  mistrusters  of  all  innovation,  whether 
from  self-interest  or  other  motives.  Colet,  in  a  letter  to  Erasmus, 
relates  that  one  of  the  prelates  of  the  church,  esteemed  among  the 
most  eminent  for  his  learning  and  gravity,  had,  in  a  great  public 

1  Hist.  Engi.  Poet.,  Sect,  xxxvi. 
VOL.  I.  63 


418  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

assemKy,  censui'ed  him  in  the  severest  terms  for  sufferinp;  the  Latin 
poets  to  be  tauoht  in  his  new  seminary,  which  on  that  account  he 
styled  a  house  of  idolatry.  This  last  expression  would  almost  Avar- 
rant  us  in  suspecting  that  the  prelate,  whose  name  is  not  mentioned, 
was  one  of  those  inclined  to  the  new  opinions  in  religion :  and  at 
this  time  the  new  learning  was  probably  rather  distasteful  than 
otherwise  to  that  class  of  persons,  zealously  patronized  as  it  was  by 
Fox,  Wolsey,  and  others,  the  heads  of  the  party  attached  to  the 
ancient  faith.  A  few  years  afterwards  a  change  took  place  in  this 
respect :  the  reformers  in  religion  became  also  the  chief  supporters 
of  tlie  reformation  in  learning,  as  was  fit  and  natural  both  from  the 
sameness  in  the  general  character  and  direction  of  the  two  move- 
ments, and  also  for  an  especial  reason,  which  operated  with  very 
powerful  effect.  This  was  the  surpassing  importance  speedily 
acquired  in  the  contest  betAveen  the  two  religions  by  the  great 
])rinciple  on  which  the  Reformers  took  their  stand,  of  the  omnipo- 
ace  of  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  in  regard  to  all  the  points 
in  debate  between  them  and  their  opponents.  Not  custom  or  tra- 
dition, not  the  decrees  of  popes  or  councils,  not  even  the  Latin 
Vulgate  translation,  but  the  original  text  of  the  Greek  New  Tes- 
tament alone,  necessarily  became,  as  soon  as  this  principle  was  pro- 
claimed, the  grand  ultimate  criterion  with  them  for  the  trial  and 
decision  of  all  doubts  and  disputes,  and  the  armory  from  which 
they  drew  their  chief  weapons  both  of  defence  and  of  assault.  At 
first,  it  is  true,  this  view  does  not  appear  to  have  been  generally 
taken  either  by  the  one  party  or  the  other.  The  first  editions  of 
the  Greek  Testament  that  Avere  given  to  the  Avorld  Avere  that  con- 
tained in  the  Complutensian  Polyglot,  the  magnificent  present  to 
literature  of  Cardinal  Ximenes,  printed  in  1514,  but  not  published 
till  l.")22,  and  that  of  Erasmus,  AA'hich  appeared  in  1516,  both  of 
Avhich  may  be  said  to  haA-e  proceeded  from  the  bosom  of  the  ancient 
cluu-ch.  Ea'cu  from  the  first,  hoAvcA'cr,  many  of  the  clei'gy,  though 
princijially  rather  from  their  extreme  ignorance  and  illiteracy  than 
from  any  fears  they  entertained  of  its  unsettling  peo])le*s  failh, 
raised  a  considerable  outcry  against  the  New  Testament  of  Eras- 
mus: they  seem  to  have  seriously  belicA-ed  that  the  book  Avas  an 
invention  of  his  OAvn,  and  that  he  Avas  attempting  to  ostaliHsii  a 
ncAA'  religion.  But  the  opposition  to  the  Greek  Scriptures,  and  to 
Greek  literature  generally,  assimied  a  much  more  decided  charac« 
ten*  AAdien  it  AA-as  seen  what  use  the  friends  of  the  neAv  opinions  in 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  419 

religion  made  of  both,  and  how  commonly  an  inclination  in  favor 
of  the  said  new  opinions  went  along  with  the  cultivation  of  tJie  new 
language.  Erasmus  for  some  time  attempted  to  expound  the  Greek 
Grammar  of  Chrysoloras  in  the  public  schools  at  Cambridge  ;  but 
his  lectures  were  nearly  unattended,  and  a  storm  of  clamor  wa.s 
raised  against  him  on  all  hands.  His  New  Testament  was  actually 
proscribed  Ijy  the  authorities  of  the  University,  and  a  severe  fine 
was  denounced  against  any  member  who  should  be  detected  in 
having  the  book  hi  his  possession.  Both  in  England  and  through- 
out Europe  the  universities  were  now  generally  divided  into  Greeks 
and  Trojans  ;  the  latter  class,  who  were  those  opposed  to  the  new 
learning,  usually  comprehenchng  all  the  monks  and  other  most 
bigoted  partisans  of  the  old  faith.^ 

Although,  however,  the  revolt  of  Luther  and  his  followers 
against  the  authority  of  Rome  and  many  of  the  established  doc- 
trines in  religion  thus  incidentally  aided  for  a  time  the  study  and 
diffusion  of  classical  scholarship,  neither  the  subsequent  progress  of 
the  Reformation  in  England  nor  its  ultimate  establishment  operated 
with  a  favorable  effect  in  the  first  instance  upon  the  state  of  the 
universities  or  the  general  interests  of  learning.  Henry  VIII. 
himself,  "from  his  natural  liveliness  of  temper  and  love  of  nov- 
elty," as  Warton'  puts  it,  or,  as  perhaps  it  might  be  more  correctly 
expressed,  from  mere  accident  or  caprice,  was  favorably  disposed  to 
the  new  studies,  and  his  authority  and  influence  were  of  consider- 
able use  in  supporting  them  at  first  against  their  numerous  and 
powerful  opponents.  Erasmus  relates  that,  in  1519,  when  one  of 
the  university  preachers  at  Oxford  had  harangued  with  great  vio- 
lence against  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  in  their  original  languages, 
Henry,  who  happened  to  be  resident  at  the  time  at  the  neighboring 
royal  manor  of  Woodstock,  and  had  received  an  account  of  the 
affair  from  his  secretary,  the  learned  Richard  Pace,  and  Sir  Thomas 
More,  issued  an  order  commanding  that  the  said  study  of  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew  Scriptures  should  not  only  be  permitted  for  the  future, 
but  made  an  indispensable  branch  of  the  course  of  academical  in- 
struction. Some  time  after,  one  of  the  royal  chaplains,  preaching 
at  court,  having  attacked  the  new  Greek  learning,  was,  after  his 
sermon,  commandc^d  by  the  king  to  maintain  his  opinions  in  a 
solemn  disputation  with  More,  by  whose  wit  and  learning  of  course 

1  The  reader  will  recollect  Addison's  humorous  notices  of  the  modern  Gi'eeks 
%nd  Trojans,  in  the  Spectator,  Nos.  'lo'^)  and  2-15. 


420  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

he  was  very  speedily  vanquished,  and  forced  to  make  a  humiliating, 
admission  of  his  errors  and  ignorance  :  he  at  last  declared  that  he 
was  now  better  reconciled  to  the  Greek  tongue,  inasmuch  as  he 
found  that  it  was  derived  from  the  Hebrew ;  but,  although  he  fel. 
upon  his  knees  and  begged  pardon  for  any  offence  he  had  given, 
Henry  dismissed  him  with  a  command  that  he  should  never  again 
presume  to  preach  before  him.  One  of  the  first  causes,  however, 
although  it  was  only  of  temporary  operation,  that  interrupted  the 
progress  of  classical  learning  at  the  universities,  has  been  thought 
to  have  been  the  stir  excited  throughout  Christendom  by  the  ques- 
tion of  Henry's  divorce  from  Queen  Katherine.  "  The  legality 
of  this  violent  measure,"  observes  Warton,  "  being  agitated  with 
much  deliberation  and  solemnity,  wholly  engrossed  the  attention  of 
many  able  philologists,  whose  genius  and  acquisitions  were  destined 
to  a  much  nobler  employment,  and  tended  to  re\dve  for  a  time  the 
frivolous  subtleties  of  casuistry  and  theology."  Then,  the  still  more 
eager  and  widel}'  extended  doctrinal  discussions  to  which  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Reformation  itself  gave  rise,  came  to  operate  over  a 
much  longer  period  with  a  similar  effect.  In  this  universal  storm 
of  polemics,  "  the  profound  investigations  of  Aquinas,"  continues 
Warton,  "  once  more  triumphed  over  the  graces  of  the  Ciceronian 
urbanity  ;  and  endless  volumes  were  written  on  the  expediency  of 
auricular  confession,  and  the  existence  of  purgatory.  Thus  the 
cause  of  polite  literature  Avas  for  a  while  abandoned ;  while  the 
noblest  abilities  of  Europe  were  wasted  in  theological  speculation, 
and  absorbed  in  the  abyss  of  conti-oversy."  Another  great  tem- 
porary check  was  now  also  given,  Warton  conceives,  to  the  cause 
of  the  progress  and  diffusion  of  sound  learning  in  England  by  the 
dissolution  of  the  monasteries.  "•  These  seminaries,"  he  observes, 
"  though  they  were  in  a  general  view  the  nurseries  of  illiterate  in- 
dolence, and  undoubtedly  deserved  to  be  suppressed  under  proper 
restrictions,  contained  invitations  and  opportunities  to  studious  lei- 
sure and  literary  pursuits.  On  this  event,  therefore,  a  visible  rev- 
olution and  decline  in  the  national  state  of  learning  succeeded. 
Most  of  the  youth  of  the  kingdom  l)etook  themselves  to  mechanical 
or  other  illiberal  employments,  the  profession  of  letters  being  now 
supposed  to  be  without  support  or  reward.  By  the  abolition  of 
the  relijj-ious  houses,  many  towns  and  their  adjacent  villages  were 
utterly  deprived  of  their  only  means  of  instruction.  At  the  begir« 
ning  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  Williams,  Speaker  of  the  House  cf 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  421 

Commons,  complained  to  lier  majesty,  that  more  than  an  hundred 
flourishing  schools  were  destroyed  in  the  demolition  of  the  monas- 
teries, and  that  ignorance  had  prevailed  ever  since.  Provincial 
ignorance,  at  least,  became  universal,  in  consequence  of  this  hasty 
measure  of  a  rapacious  and  arbitrary  prince.  What  was  taught  in 
the  monasteries  was  not  always  perhaps  of  the  greatest  importance, 
but  still  it  served  to  keep  up  a  certain  degree  of  necessary  knowl- 
edge." The  many  new  grammar  schools  that  arose  in  different 
parts  of  the  country  after  the  destruction  of  the  monasteries  were 
partly,  no  doubt,  called  into  existence  by  the  vacuum  thus  created ; 
which,  however,  they  did  very  little  to  fill  up  in  so  far  as  the  rural 
population  was  concerned,  although  they  may  have  sufficed  for  most 
of  the  great  towns. 

Both  the  old  monastic  schools  and  the  new  foundations,  however, 
being  considered,  to  a  certain  extent,  as  chai'itable  institutions, 
were  principally  attended  by  the  children  of  persons  in  humble  or 
at  least  in  common  life  ;  among  the  higher  classes  it  seems  to  have 
been  the  general  custom  for  boys  as  well  as  girls  to  be  educated  at 
home,  or  under  the  superintendence  of  private  tutors.  A  notion 
of  the  extent  and  manner  of  training  which  youths  of  rank  under- 
went in  their  earliest  years  may  be  obtained  from  some  letters 
which  have  been  printed,  addressed  to  Henry's  minister,  Cromwell, 
by  the  tutor  of  his  son  Gregory.^  This  young  man,  whose  capacity 
is  desci'ibed  as  rather  solid  than  quick,  divided  his  time  under 
different  masters  among  various  studies  and  exercises,  of  which 
English,  French,  writing,  playing  at  weapons,  casting  of  accounts, 
and  "pastimes  of  instruments,"  are  particularly  enumerated.  One 
master  is  stated  to  be  in  the  habit  of  "  daily  hearing  him  to  read 
somewhat  in  the  English  tongue,  and  advertising  him  of  the  natu- 
ral and  true  kind  of  pronunciation  thereof,  expounding  also  and 
declaring  the  etymology  and  native  signification  of  such  words  as 
we  have  borrowed  of  the  Latins  or  Frenchmen,  not  even  so  com- 
monly used  in  our  quotidian  speech."  According  to  a  common 
practice,  two  other  youths,  probably  of  inferior  station,  appear  to 
hav(!  been  educated  along  with  young  Ci'omwell ;  and  between 
him  and  them,  the  account  continues,  "  there  is  a  perpetual  con- 
tention, strife,  and  conflict,  and  in  manner  of  an  honest  envy,  who 
shall  do  best  not  only  in  the  French  tongue  (wherein  Mr.  Vallance, 
after  a  wondrously  compendious,  facile,  prompt,  and  ready  way, 
^  King  Henry  the  Eighth's  Scheme  of  Bishoprics,  &c.,  8vo.  Lend.  1838. 


±22  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND  LANGUAGE. 

not  witliout  painful  diligence  and  laborious  industry,  doth  instruct 
them),  but  also  in  writing,  playing  at  weapons,  and  all  other  theif 
exercises."  In  the  end  a  confident  hope  is  expressed  that, 
"  whereas  the  last  summer  was  spent  in  the  service  of  the  wild 
goddess  Diana,"  the  present  shall  be  consecrated  to  Apollo  and 
the  Muses,  to  the  no  small  profit  of  the  young  man,  as  well  as  to 
his  father's  good  contentation  and  pleasure.  This  letter  is  dated 
in  April ;  another,  written  in  September  (apparently  of  the  same 
year),  by  which  time  the  boy  had  begun  the  study  of  some  new 
branches,  especially  Latin  and  instrumental  music,  enters  into 
some  more  minute  and  curious  details  of  how  he  spent  his  time. 
"  First,"  says  his  tutor,  "  after  he  hath  heard  mass,  he  taketh  a 
lecture  of  a  dialogue  of  Erasmus'  colloquium  called  Pietas  Puerilis, 
wherein  is  described  a  very  picture  of  one  that  should  be  virtu- 
ously brought  up  ;  and,  for  cause  it  is  so  necessary  for  him,  I  do 
not  only  cause  him  to  read  it  over,  but  also  to  practise  the  precepts 
of  the  same  ;  and  I  have  also  translated  it  into  English,  so  that  he 
may  confer  therein  both  together,  whereof,  as  learned  men  affirm, 
Cometh  no  small  profect,  which  translation  pleaseth  it  you  to  receive 
by  the  bringer  hereof,  that  ye  may  judge  how  much  profitable  it 
is  to  be  learned."  From  this  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  original 
Latin  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  Cromwell,  and  that  that 
able  man  Avas  above  being  flattered  by  having  a  knowledge  of  the 
learned  tongues  ascribed  to  him  which  he  did  not  possess.  The 
letter  goes  on  —  "  After  that  he  exerciseth  his  hand  in  writing 
one  or  two  hours,  and  readeth  upon  Fabian's  Chronicles  as  long  ; 
the  residue  of  the  day  he  doth  spend  upon  the  lute  and  virginal." 
Vocal  music  at  least,  it  may  be  observed,  if  not  instrumental,  was 
always  one  of  the  branches  of  education  taught  at  the  old  monastic, 
cathedral,  and  other  free  schools  ;  a  circumstance  originating  no 
doubt  in  tlie  connection  of  those  schools  with  the  church,  in  the 
services  of  which  singing  bore  so  important  a  part.  Lastly,  the 
tutor  eives  an  account  of  the  out-of-door  exercises  followed  by  his 
])Ui)il;  inteHectual  instruction,  however,  being  by  no  means  disre- 
garded even  in  some  of  these.  "  When  he  rideth,  as  he  doth 
very  oft,  I  tell  liim  by  the  way,"  he  says,  "■  some  history  of  the 
Ivomans  or  the  Creeks,  which  I  cause  him  to  rehearse  again  in  a 
tale.  Foi-  his  recreation  he  useth  to  hawk,  and  hunt,  and  shoot  in 
his  long  bow,  wliicli  fVametli  and  succeedeth  so  well  with  him  that 
lie  seemetli   to  be   thereunto  given  by  nature."     This  training,  so 


CLASSICAL    LEARNING.  42o 

far  as  it  is  detailed,  appears  to  have  been  judieiously  contrived  foi 
layinc^  the  foundation  of  a  good  and  sohd  education  both  of  the 
mental  and  physical  faculties. 

The  reforming  spirit  of  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  centurj 
was,  as  always  happens,  in  the  shape  it  took  in  the  popular  mind, 
much  more  of  a  destructive  than  of  a  constructive  character  ;  and 
even  the  wisest  of  the  persons  in  authority,  by  whom  the  mighty 
movement  was  guided  and  controlled,  were  necessarily,  to  a  certain 
extent,  under  the  influence  of  the  same  presumptuous  temper, 
without  a  share  of  which,  indeed,  they  would  not  have  been  fitted 
to  restrain  the  more  impetuous  multitude  to  the  extent  they  did. 
But  in  its  application  to  the  universities,  as  in  other  cases,  this 
spirit  of  mere  demolition,  and  contempt  for  all  that  was  old  and 
established,  displayed  itself  in  some  things  in  a  very  rampant  style. 
The  scorn,  in  particular,  with  which  it  treated  the  whole  mass  of 
the  ancient  philosophy  of  the  schools  was  of  the  most  sweeping 
description.  The  famous  Duns  Scotus,  so  long  the  lord  of  opinion, 
now  underwent,  in  full  measure,  the  customary  fate  of  deposed 
sovereigns.  A  royal  visitation  of  the  two  universities,  by  commis- 
sioners of  Cromwell's  appointment,  took  place  in  1535,  when 
injunctions  were  issued  abolishing  altogether  the  reading  of  the 
works  of  the  most  subtle  Doctor.  The  tone  of  triumph  in  which 
Dr.  Layton,  one  of  the  Oxford  commissioners,  announces  this 
reform  to  Cromwell  is  highly  characteristic.  "  We  have  set 
Dunce,"  he  writes,  "  in  Bocardo,^  and  have  utterly  banisTied  him 
Oxford  for  ever,  with  all  his  blind  glosses."  The  despised  tomes, 
formerly  so  much  reverenced,  Layton  goes  on  to  intimate,  were 
now  used  by  any  man  for  the  commonest  uses ;  he  had  seen  them 
with  his  own  eyes  nailed  upon  posts  in  the  most  degrading  situa- 
tions. "  And  the  second  time  we  came  to  New  College,"  he 
proceeds,  "  after  we  had  declared  your  injunctions,  we  found  all 
the  great  quadrant  court  full  of  the  leaves  of  Dunce,  the  wind 
blowing  them  into  every  corner.  And  there  we  found  one  Mr. 
rreenfield,  a  gentleman  of  Buckinghamshire,  gathering  up  part 
the  same  book  leaves,  as  he  said,  therewith  to  make  him  sewers 
blawnshers  to  keep  the  deer  Avithin  his  wood,  thereby  to  have 
tne   better   cry   with    his    hounds."^     The    scholastic   philosophy, 

^  A  Figure  or  form  of  syllogism  of  the  school  logic,  which  terminated  in  a  nega- 
tive conclusion.  The  expression,  therefore,  implies  that  Scotus  was,  as  it  were 
mnihilated. 

2  Strype,  Eccles.  Mem.  i.  335. 


424  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

howeA'er,  which  was  tlius  Lanislied  from  the  universities,  was  in 
fact  the  wliole  philosophy,  mental  and  physical,  then  taught,  and 
its  abolition  consequently  amounted  to  the  ejection,  for  the  time, 
of  philosophical  studies  from  the  academical  course  altogether. 
The  canon  law  was  another  of  the  old  studies,  hitherto  of  chief 
importance,  that  was  at  the  same  time  put  down :  degrees  in  the 
canon  law  were  prohibited  ;  and,  in  place  of  the  canon  lecture,  a 
civil  lecture,  that  is,  a  lecture  on  the  civil  law,  was  appointed  to 
be  read  in  every  college,  hall,  and  inn. 

For  a  short  space,  the  excitement  of  novelty,  and  the  exertions 
of  a  few  eminent  instructors,  made  classical  learning  popular  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  enabled  it  in  some  degree  to  serve  as 
a  substitute  for  those  other  abandoned  studies  to  which  it  ought 
only  to  have  been  introduced  as  an  ally.  The  learned  Ascham 
boasts,  in  one  of  his  letters,  that,  whereas  almost  the  only  classics 
hitherto  known  at  Cambridge  had  been  Plavitus,  Cicero,  Terence, 
and  Livy,  all  the  chief  Greek  poets,  orators,  and  historians  —  Homer, 
Sophocles,  Euripides,  Demosthenes,  Isocrates,  Herodotus,  Thucyd- 
ides,  and  Xenophon  —  were  now  universally  and  critically  studied. 
This  prosperous  state  of  Greek  scholarship  was  principally  owing 
to  the  example  and  exertions  of  the  two  distinguished  professors 
of  that  lano-uage,  Thomas  Smith  and  John  Clieke  :  even  the  con- 
troversy  about  the  proper  pronunciation  of  the  language  that  arose 
between  the  latter  and  Bishop  Gardiner,  who,  as  Warton  observes, 
*' loved  learning,  but  hated  novelties,"  contributing  its  share  to 
excite  a  general  interest  about  Greek  literature,  as  well  as  to 
throw  new  light  upon  the  particular  subject  in  dispute.  But  both 
Cheke  and  Smith  were  soon  Avithdrawn  I'rom  their  academic  labors 
to  other  fields  ;  and  with  them  the  s])irit  of  true  learning  and  taste, 
which  they  had  awakened  at  Cambridge,  seems  also  to  have  taken 
its  departure.  At  Oxford  the  case  was  no  better ;  there,  Ascham 
remarks  that  a  decline  of  taste  in  both  the  classic  tongues  was 
decidedly  indicated  by  a  preference  of  Lucian,  Plutarch,  and  Hero- 
dian,  in  Greek,  and  of  Seneca,  Gellius,  and  Apuleius,  in  Latin, 
to  th«;  writers  of  the  older  and  purer  eras  of  ancient  eloquence. 
I'A'cn  divinity  itself,  as  Latimer  complains,  ceased  to  be  studied. 
"  It  would  pity  a  man's  heart,"  he  says,  "  to  hear  what  I  hear  of 
the  state  of  Cambridge  :  what  it  is  in  Oxfoi'd  I  cannot  tell.  There 
be  few  that  study  divinity  but  so  many  as  of  necessity  must  fur* 
nish  the  colleges."     So  true  is  it  that  no  one  branch  of  learning  o; 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  425 

science  can  long  continue  to  flourish  amid  the  general  neglect  and 
decay  of  the  other  branches  that  compose  along  with  it  the  system 
of  human  knowledge. 

The  first  establishment  of  the  Reformation  under  Edward  VI., 
instead  of  effecting  the  restoration  of  learning,  oiily  contributed  to 
its  further  discouragement  and  depression.  ^  The  rapacious  cour- 
tiers of  this  young  prince,"  as  Warton  observes,  "  were  perpetually 

grasping   at    the  rewards   of  literature Avarice   and  zeal 

were  at  once  gratified  in  robbing  the  clergy  of  their  revenues,  and 
in  reducing  the  church  to  its  primitive  apostolical  state  of  purity 
and  poverty.  The  opulent  see  of  Winchester  was  lowered  to  a 
bare  title  ;  its  amplest  estates  were  portioned  out  to  the  laity  ;  and 
the  bishop,  a  creature  of  the  Protector  Somerset,  was  contented  to 
receive  an  inconsiderable  annual  stipend  from  the  exchequer.  The 
bishopric  of  Durham,  almost  equally  rich,  was  entirely  dissolved. 
A  favorite  nobleman  in  the  court  occupied  the  deanery  and  treas- 

urership  of  a  cathedral,  with  some  of  its  best  canonries In 

every  one  of  these  sacrilegious  robberies  the  interest  of  learning 
also  suffered.  Exhibitions  and  pensions  were,  in  the  mean  time, 
subtracted  from  the  students  in  the  universities.  Ascham,  in  a  let- 
ter to  the  Marquis  of  Northampton,  dated  1550,  laments  the  ruin 
of  grammar  schools  throughout  England,  and  predicts  the  speedy 
extinction  of  the  universities  from  this  growing  calamity.  At 
Oxford  the  public  schools  were  neglected  by  the  professors  and 
pupils,  and  allotted  to  the  lowest  purposes.  Academical  degrees 
were  abrogated  as  anti-christian.  Reformation  was  soon  turned 
into  fanaticism.  Absurd  refinements,  concerning  the  inutility  of 
human  learning,  were  superadded  to  the  just  and  rational  purgation 
of  Christianity  from  the  papal  corruptions.  The  spiritual  reformers 
of  these  enlightened  days,  at  a  visitation  of  the  last-mentioned 
university,  proceeded  so  far  in  their  ideas  of  a  superior  rectitude, 
as  totally  to  strip  the  public  library,  established  by  that  munificent 
patron,  Humphrey  Duke  of  Gloucester,  of  all  its  books  and  man- 
uscripts." 

A  very  curious  account  of  the  state  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge in  this  reign  is  contained  in  a  sermon,  preached  in  1550,  by 
a  Thomas  Lever,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  some  extracts  from 
which  Strype  has  preserved.  Foi'merly  '■'  there  were,"  say^  Lever, 
"  in  houses  belonging  to  the  L^niversity  of  Cambridge,  two  hun- 
Ired  students  of  divinity,  many  very  well  learned,  which  be  now 

VOL.   I.  54 


426  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

all  clt.'an  gone  home  ;  and  many  young  to-ward  scholars,  and  old 
fatherly  doctors,  not  one  of  them  left.  One  hundred  also,  of 
another  sort,  that,  having  rich  friends,  or  being  beneficed  men,  did 
live  of  themselves  in  hostels  and  inns,  be  either  gone  away  or  else 
fain  to  creep  into  colleges  and  put  poor  men  from  bare  livings. 
These  both  be  all  gone,  and  a  small  number  of  poor,  godly,  diligent 
students,  now  remaining  only  in  colleges,  be  not  able  to  tarry  and 
continue  their  studies  for  lack  of  exhibition  and  help."  The 
description  which  follows  of  the  studies  and  mode  of  living  of  the 
poorer  and  more  diligent  students  is  very  interesting :  —  "  There 
be  divers  there  which  rise  daily  about  four  or  five  of  the  clock  in 
the  morning,  and  from  five  till  six  of  the  clock  use  common  prayer, 
with  an  exhortation  of  God's  word  in  a  common  chapel ;  and  from 
six  until  ten  of  the  clock  use  ever  either  private  study  or  common 
lectures.  At  ten  of  the  clock  they  go  to  dinner,  whereas  they  be 
content  with  a  penny  piece  of  beef  among  four,  having  a  few  pot- 
tage made  of  the  broth  of  the  same  beef,  Avith  salt  and  oatmeal, 
and  nothing  else.  After  this  slender  diet,  they  be  either  teaching 
or  learning  until  five  of  the  clock  in  the  evening ;  whenas  they 
have  a  supper  not  much  better  than  their  dinner.  Immediately 
after  which  they  go  either  to  reasoning  in  jn'oblems,  or  to  some 
other  study,  until  it  be  nine  or  ten  of  the  clock  ;  and  then,  being 
without  fires,  are  fain  to  walk  or  rmi  up  and  down  half  an  hour, 
to  get  a  heat  on  their  feet  when  they  go  to  bed."  ^  Latimer,  in  a 
sermon  preached  about  the  same  time,  expresses  his  belief  that 
there  were  then  ten  thousand  fewer  students  m  the  kincrdom  than 
there  had  been  twenty  years  before. 

In  the  reign  of  Mary,  who  was  herself  a  leai'ned  queen,  and  a 
considerable  benefactress  of  both  universities,  classical  learning  had 
a  distinguished  patron  in  Cardinal  Pole,  who  was  as  illustrious  for 
his  literary  acquirements  as  he  was  for  his  birth  and  station.  In 
his  short  tenure  of  power,  however,  he  was  not  able  to  accomplish 
much  against  the  adverse  circumstances  of  the  time.  It  ap])ears 
that  to  him  Sir  Thomas  Pope,  the  founder  of  Trinity  College, 
Oxford,  which  was  endowed  in  this  reign  more  especially  for  the 
cultivation  of  classical  scholarshij),  sulnnitted  the  statutes  of  his 
new  institution.  "  iNIy  Lord  Cardinal's  Grace,"  says  Sir  Thomas, 
in  a  letter  of  his  which  has  been  preserved,  "has  had  the  oversee- 
ijig  of  my  statutes.  He  much  likes  well  that  I  have  therein  ordered 
1  Ecclos.  Mem.  ii.  422. 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  427 

the  Latin  tongue  to  be  read  to  my  scholars.  But  lie  advises  me  H 
order  the  Greek  to  be  more  taught  there  than  I  have  provided. 
This  purpose  I  well  like ;  but  I  fear  the  times  will  not  bear  it  now. 
I  remember  wlien  I  was  a  young  scholar  at  Eton,  the  Greek  tongue 
was  growing  apace ;  the  study  of  which  is  now  alate  much  decayed." 
The  fact  here  stated  is  especially  honorable  to  Pole,  seeing  that  by 
this  time  the  Greek  lano-uao-e,  as  that  of  the  orioinal  text  of  the 
New  Testament,  to  which  the  Reformers  made  all  their  ap])eals, 
liad  come  to  be  regarded  by  the  generality  of  Romanists  as  a  pecul- 
iarly Protestant  and  almost  heretical  study.  The  return  of  the 
old  religion,  however,  with  its  persecutions  and  penal  fires,  did  not 
prove  on  the  whole  more  favorable  to  the  interests  of  learning  than 
to  any  of  the  other  interests  of  the  national  happiness  and  civili- 
zation. 

Nor  did  the  final  establishment  of  the  reformed  church,  nor  all 
the  prosperity  of  the  next  reign,  for  a  long  time  brhig  back  good 
letters  to  the  universities.  A  few  facts  will  show  their  state  through- 
out a  great  part  of  that  reign.  In  the  first  place,  so  few  persons 
now  received  a  university  education,  that  for  many  years  a  large 
proportion  of  the  clergy  of  the  new  church  were  mere  artificers 
and  other  illiterate  persons,  some  of  whom,  while  they  preached  on 
Sundays,  Avorked  at  their  trades  on  weekdays,  and  some  of  whom 
could  hardly  write  their  names.  In  the  year  1563,  we  are  informed 
by  Anthony  Wood,  there  were  only  three  divines  in  the  university 
of  Oxford  who  were  considered  capable  of  preaching  the  public 
sermons.  It  has  been  sometimes  alleged  that  the  growing  influence 
of  Puritanism  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  continued  neglect 
and  depression  in  which  learning  was  now  left ;  but  it  is  a  remark- 
able fact,  that  the  three  Oxford  preachers  were  all  Puritans,  as 
were  also  many  of  the  most  distinguished  ornaments  of  both 
universities  at  a  later  date.  In  1567,  so  low  was  still  the  state  of 
classical  literature  in  the  country,  that  when  Archbishop  Parker  in 
that  year  founded  three  scholarships  in  Cambridge,  the  holders  of 
which  were  to  be  "  the  best  and  ablest  scholars  "  elected  from  the 
most  considerable  schools  in  Kent  and  Norfolk,  all  the  amount  of 
qualification  he  required  in  them  was,  that  they  should  be  well  in- 
structed in  the  grammar,  "  and,  if  it  may  be,"  it  was  added,  "  such 
as  can  make  a  verse."  As  one  instance  of  the  extreme  ignorance 
of  the  inferior  clergy  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century 
Warton  mentions,  on  the  authority  of  the  episcopal  register,  tha 


428  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND    LANGUAGE. 

"  in  the  year  1570,  Home,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  enjoined  the 
minor  canons  of  his  cathedral  to  get  by  memory,  every  week,  one 
chapter  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  in  Latin ;  and  this  formidable  task, 
almost  beneath  the  abilities  of  an  ordinary  schoolboy,  was  actually 
repeated  by  some  of  them,  before  the  bishop,  dean,  and  preben- 
daries, at  a  public  episcopal  visitation  of  that  church."  The  anec- 
dote, at  least,  presents  the  bishops  and  minor  canons  of  those  times 
in  a  strange  light.  The  accomplished  critic  we  have  just  quoted  is 
of  opinion  that  the  taste  for  Latin  composition  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  had  much  degenei-ated  from  what  it  was  in  that  of  Henry 
Vin.  The  Latinity  of  Ascham's  prose,  he  maintains,  has  no 
eloquence ;  and  even  Buchanan's  Latin  poetry,  althougli  he  admits 
that  its  versification  and  phraseology  are  splendid  and  sonorous,  he 
will  not  allow  to  be  marked  with  the  chaste  graces  and  simple 
ornaments  of  the  Augustan  age.  "  One  is  surprised,"  he  adds, 
"  to  find  the  learned  Archbishop  Grindal,  in  the  statutes  of  a  school 
which  he  founded  and  amply  endowed  (in  1583),  recommending 
such  barbarous  and  degenerate  classics  as  Palingenius,  Sedulius, 
and  Prudentius  to  be  taught  in  his  new  foundation.  These,  indeed, 
were  the  classics  of  a  reforming  bishop ;  but  the  well-meaning 
prelate  would  have  contributed  much  more  to  the  success  of  his 
intended  reformation  by  directing  books  of  better  taste  and  less 
piety."  1 

The  whole  of  the  sixteenth  centuiy,  however,  will  deserve  th^e 
epithet  of  a  learned  age,  notwithstanding  the  state  of  the  schools 
and  universities,  and  of  what  are  called  the  learned  professions,  if 
we  look  eitlier  to  the  names  of  eminent  scholars  by  which  every 
portion  of  it  is  adorned,  or  to  the  extent  to  which  the  study  of  the 
learned  languages  then  entered  into  the  education  of  all  persons, 
women  as  well  as  men,  who  were  considered  to  be  well  educated. 
In  the  earlier  part  of  it,  besides  Cranmer,  Ridley,  Tunstal,  Gardi- 
ner, Pole,  and  other  churchmen  of  distinguished  acquirements, 
we  have  Richard  Pace,  Sir  John  Clieke,  and  Sir  Thomas  Smith, 
Colet  the  founder  and  Lilly  the  first  master  of  St.  Paul's  School, — 
all  already  mentioned  ;  William  Grocyn,  another  of  the  first  and 
also  one  of  the  very  greatest  of  the  English  Grecians  ;  the  equally 
elegant  and  industrious  John  Leland,  the  father  of  English  antiq- 
uities, and  the  chief  preserver  in  his  day  of  the  old  knowledge 
that  would  otherwise  have  perished,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.  iii.  283. 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  42£ 

successftil  cultivators  of  the  neAv  ;  Doctor  Thomas  Liuacer,  tlie 
first  English  physician,  and  as  a  scholar  scarcely  second  to  any,  of 
his  country  or  of  his  age  ;  and  the  all-accomplished  Sir  Thomaa 
More,  perhaps  the  happiest  genius  of  his  time,  the  one  of  its  pro- 
found scholars,  at  all  events,  unless  we  are  to  except  his  illustrious 
friend  Erasmus,  whose  natural  genius  was  the  least  oppressed  by 
his  erudition,  and  Avhose  erudition  was  the  most  brightened  with 
wit,  and  informed  by  a  living  spirit  better  than  that  of  books.  Of 
somewhat  later  celebrity  are  the  names  of  Roger  Ascham,  who  U 
more  famous,  however,  for  his  English  than  for  his  Latin  writings ; 
of  Dr.  Walter  Haddon,  the  most  Ciceronian  of  English  Latinists  ; 
of  Buchanan,  perhaps  the  most  of  a  poet  of  all  the  modern  writei-s 
of  Latin  verse  ;  not  to  mention  Archbishop  Parker,  Bishop  An- 
drews, and  other  eminent  churchmen.  The  number  of  very  great 
English  scholars,  however,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  was  not  so 
considerable  as  in  that  of  her  father,  when  classical  studies  were 
not  only  cultivated  with  perhaps  a  triier  appreciation  of  the  highest 
models,  but  afforded,  besides,  almost  the  only  field  for  intellectual 
exercise  and  display.  Still  this  kind  of  learning  continued  to  be 
fashionable  ;  and  a  familiar,  if  not  a  profound,  acquaintance  with 
both  the  Latin  and  the  Greek  languages  was  diffused  to  an  iinusual 
extent  among  persons  of  the  highest  rank.  Henry  VIII.  was 
himself  a  scholar  of  considerable  pretensions  ;  he  is  said  to  have, 
as  a  younger  son,  been  educated  for  the  church  :  and  to  this  acci- 
dent, which  gave  the  country  its  first  pedant  king,  it  may  perhaps 
have  been  also  indebted  for  its  succession  of  learned  princes,  which 
lasted  for  more  than  a  centur-y,  —  Henry,  as  it  were,  setting  the 
fashion,  which  it  afterwards  became  a  matter  of  course  to  follow. 
His  son,  though  born  to  the  throne  to  Avhich  he  succeeded,  received 
a  schoolmastering  fit  for  a  bishop  ;  and  so  also  did  both  his  daugh- 
ters. Erasmus  has  commended  the  Latin  letters  of  Mary,  some 
of  which  are  preserved,  as  well  as  others,  in  French  and  in  Spanish. 
Elizabeth  was  not  only  a  Latin,  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  scholar, 
but  also  a  proficient  in  Greek,  in  which  language  her  tutor  Ascham 
tells  us  she  used,  even  after  she  came  to  the  throne,  to  read  more 
every  day  than  some  })rebendaries  of  the  church  read  of  Latin  in 
a  whole  week.  But  this  was  especially  the  age  of  learned  ladies  ; 
Rud  every  reader  will  remember  the  names  of  Lady  Jane  Grey, 
of  whose  studies  in  Plato  the  same  writer  we  have  just  mentioned 
'las  drawn  so  interesting  a  picture,  and  some  of  whose  Latin  epistles 


430  ENGLISH    IJTERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

are  still  extant,  especially  one  to  her  sister,  written  the  night  before 
her  death,  in  a  Greek  Testament,  in  which  she  had  been  reading 
of  Mary,  Countess  of  Arundel ;  her  daughter-in-law,  Joanna  Ladv 
Lumley ;  and  the  younger  sister  of  the  latter,  Mary  Duchess  of 
Norfolk,  all  of  whom  were  the  authoresses  of  various  translations 
from  the  Greek  into  Latin  and  English  ;  of  the  two  Margarets 
the  female  luminaries  of  tlie  household  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  the 
friend  who  became  the  Avife  of  her  learned  tutor,  Dr.  John  Clem- 
ent, and  who  is  said  to  have  so  delighted  in  and  almost  wor- 
shi])ped  More,  that  she  would  sometimes  commit  a  fault  purely 
that  she  might  be  chid  by  him  —  such  moderation  and  humanity 
were  there  in  his  anger  ;  tlie  other,  his  affectionate  and  favorite 
daughter  who  married  his  biographer  Roper,  and  was  accounted 
the  most  learned  woman  of  her  time  ;  and  of  the  four  wonderful 
daughters  of  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  —  Mildred,  the  eldest,  married 
to  Lord  Burghley,  whose  name  has  been  embalmed  by  the  muse 
of  Buchanan  ;  Anne,  the  second,  the  governess  of  Edv.-ard  VL, 
and  afterwards  the  wife  of  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  and  the  mother 
of  the  illustrious  Viscount  St.  Alban  ;  Elizabeth,  the  third,  the 
wife,  first  of  Sir  Thomas  Hobby,  then  of  Lord  Russell ;  and  the 
youngest,  Catherine,  who  married  Sir  Henry  Killigrew,  and  is 
celebrated  not  only  for  her  Latin  and  Greek,  but  even  for  her 
Hebrew  erudition.  "  It  became  fixshionable  in  this  reign  (that  of 
Elizabeth),"  says  Warton,  "to  study  Greek  at  court.  The  maids 
of  honor  indulged  their  ideas  of  sentimental  affection  in  the  sub- 
lime contemplation  of  Plato's  Pha?do  ;  and  the  queen,  wlio  under- 
stood Greek  better  than  the  canons  of  Windsor,  and  was  certahily 
a  much  greater  pedant  than  her  successor  James  I.,  translated 
Isocrates.  But  this  passion  for  the  Greek  language  soon  ended 
where  it  began ;  nor  do  we  find  that  it  improved  the  national  taste, 
or  influenced  the  writings  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth." 

Old  Harrison  has  a  curious  and  characteristic  passage  on  this 
learned  court.  "  This  further,"  he  observes,  "  is  not  to  be  omit- 
ted, to  the  singular  commendation  of  both  sorts  and  sexes  of  our 
courtiers  here  in  England,  that  there  are  very  few  of  them  Avhich 
have  not  the  use  and  skill  of  sundry  speeches,  besides  an  excellent 
vein  of  Avriting,  before-time  not  regarded."  He  does  not,  hoAv- 
ever,  seem  to  have  a  more  favoiable  notion  of  the  moral  effipct  of 
these  novel  and  showy  accomplishments  than  Warton  has  expressed 
respecting  their  influence    on    the    national   literature   and   taste 


CLASSICAL   LEARNING.  431 

"  Would  to  God,"  he  exclaims,  "  the  rest  of  their  lives  and  con- 
versations were  correspondent  to  those  gifts  !  For,  as  our  connnon 
courtiers,  for  the  most  part,  are  the  best  learned  and  endued  with 
excellent  gifts,  so  are  many  of  them  the  worst  men,  when  they 
come  abroad,  that  any  man  shall  either  hear  or  read  of."  Harri- 
son's words,  which  are  surprisingly  bold  to  have  been  published  at 
the  time,  seem  here  to  be  gallantly  confined  to  the  men  of  the 
court ;  but  other  contemporary  testimonies  do  not  disguise  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  women  were  as  dissolute  as  their  male  associates. 
The  honest  old  painter  of  the  living  manners  of  his  time  may  be 
thought,  perhaps,  to  hint  at  something  of  the  kind  in  what  follows : 
—  "  Truly  it  is  a  rare  thing  with  us  now  to  hear  of  a  courtier 
which  hath  but  his  own  language.  And  to  say  hoAV  many  gentle- 
women and  ladies  there  are  that,  beside  sound  knowledo-e  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  tongues,  are  thereto  no  less  skilful  in  Spanish, 
Italian,  and  French,  or  in  some  one  of  them,  it  resteth  not  in  me  ; 
sith  I  am  persuaded  that,  as  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  do 
surmount  in  this  behalf,  so  these  come  very  little  or  nothing  at  all 
behind  them  for  their  parts  ;  which  industry  God  continue,  and 
accomplish  that  luhich  otherwise  is  wanting.''''  Yet  he  winds  up  his 
description  with  a  very  laudatory  flourish.  "  Beside  these  things," 
he  proceeds,  "  I  could  in  like  sort  set  down  the  ways  and  means, 
whereby  our  ancient  ladies  of  the  court  do  shun  and  avoid  idle- 
ness, some  of  them  exercising  their  fingers  with  the  needle,  others 
in  caul-Vv^ork,  divers  in  spinning  of  silk,  some  in  continual  reading 
either  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  or  histories  of  our  own  or  foreign 
nations  about  us,  and  divers  in  writino;  volumes  of  their  own,  or 
translating  of  other  men's  into  our  E)iglish  and  Latin  tongue, 
whilst  the  youngest  sort  in  the  mean  time  apply  their  lutes,  cit- 
terns, pricksong,  and  all  kind  of  music,  which  they  use  only  for 
recreation  sake,  when  they  have  leisure,  and  are  free  ft-om  attend- 
ance upon  the  queen's  majesty,  or  such  as  they  belong  unto." 
Many  o^  the  elder  sort  he  goes  on  to  celebrate  as  "  also  skilful  hi 
surgery  and  distillation  of  waters,  besides  sundry  other  artificial 
practices  pertaining  to  the  ornature  and  commendations  of  their 
bodies  ;  "  and  "  there  are  none  of  them,"  he  adds,  "  but  wJien  they 
be  at  home  can  help  to  supply  the  ordinary  want  of  the  kitchen 
with  a  number  of  delicate  dishes  of  their  own  devising."  At  last, 
coming  directly  to  the  morals  of  the  court,  he  declares  that,  whereas 
Bome  great  j>rinces'  courts  beyond  the  seas  have  been  likened  unto 


432  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  AND   LANGUAGE. 

hell  on  account  of  the  dissipation  and  debauchery  prevailino-  in 
them,  all  such  "  enormities  are  either  utterly  expelled  out  of  the 
court  of  England,  or  else  so  qualified  by  the  diligent  endeavour  of 
the  chief  officers  of  her  grace's  household,  that  seldom  are  any 
of  these  things  apparently  seen  there  Avithout  due  reprehension, 
and  such  severe  correction  as  belongeth  to  those  trespasses." 
"Finally,"  he  concludes,  "to  avoid  idleness,  and  prevent  sundr}' 
transgressions  otherwise  likely  to  be  committed  and  done,  such 
order  is  taken  that  every  office  hath  either  a  Bible,  or  the  Book 
of  the  Acts  and  Monuments  of  the  Church  of  England,  or  both, 
besides  some  histories  and  chronicles,  lying  therein,  for  the  exercise 
of  such  as  come  into  the  same  ;  whereby  the  stranger  that  entereth 
into  the  court  of  England  upon  the  sudden  shall  rather  imagine 
himself  to  come  into  some  public  school  of  the  universities,  Avhere 
many  give  ear  to  one  that  readeth,  than  into  a  prince's  palace,  if 
you  confer  the  same  with  those  of  other  nations."  ^ 

1  Description  of  England,  b.  ii.  c.  15.  To  this  may  be  added  a  curious  passage 
which  Strype  gives  in  his  Life  of  Archbishop  Parker,  from  an  Epistle  to  Queen 
Katherine  Parr  by  Nicholas  Udall  (of  whom  we  sliall  have  more  to  say  some  pages 
onward),  found  in  a  translation  of  Tlie  First  Tome  or  Volume  of  the  Paraphrase 
of  Erasmus  upon  the  New  Testament,  executed  partly  by  himself,  partly  by  others, 
among  them  the  Princess  Mary,  who  is  said  to  have  done  part  of  the  Gospel  of  St. 
Jolm,  which  was  published  in  15-19,  in  tlie  reign  of  Edward  VI.  : —  "But  now  in 
this  gracious  and  blissful  time  of  knowledge,  in  which  it  hath  pleased  God  Almighty 
to  reveal  and  show  abroad  the  light  of  his  most  holy  gospel,  what  a  number  is  there 
of  noble  women,  especially  here  in  this  realm  of  England,  yea  and  how  many  in 
the  years  of  tender  virginity,  not  on\y  as  well  seen  and  as  familiarly  traded  in  the 
Latin  and  Greek  tongues  as  in  their  own  mother  language,  but  also  botli  in  all  kinds 
of  profane  literature  and  liberal  arts  exacted,  studied,  and  exercised,  and  in  the 
Holy  Scripture  and  Theology  so  ripe  that  they  are  able  aptly,  cunningly,  and  with 
much  grace,  either  to  indite  or  translate  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  for  the  public  in- 
struction and  edifying  of  the  unlearned  multitude.  Neither  is  it  now  a  strange 
thing  to  hear  gentlewomen,  instead  of  most  vain  communication  about  the  moon 
shining  in  the  water  [so  we  still  familiarly  call  a  thing  of  no  sense  or  significance 
a  matter  of  moonshine],  to  use  grave  and  substantial  talk  in  Latin  and  Greek,  with 
their  husbands,  of  godly  matters.  It  is  now  no  news  in  England  for  young  dam- 
sels, in  noble  houses  and  in  the  courts  of  princes,  instead  of  cards  and  other  instru 
ments  of  idle  trifling,  to  have  continually  in  their  hands,  either  Psalms,  homilies, 
and  other  devout  meditations,  or  else  Paul's  Epistles,  or  some  book  of  Iloly  Scrip- 
ture matters,  and  as  familiarly  to  read  or  reason  thereof  in  Greek,  Latin,  French, 
or  Italian,  as  in  English.  It  is  now  a  common  thing  to  see  young  virgins  so  nursed 
and  trained  in  the  study  of  letters,  that  they  willingly  set  all  .other  vain  pastimes 
at  nought  for  learning's  sake.  It  is  now  no  news  at  all  to  see  queens,  and  ladies 
of  most  high  state  and  progeny,  instead  of  courtly  dalliance,  to  embrace  virtuous 
exercises  of  reading  and  writing,  and  with  most  earnest  study,  both  early  and  late, 
to  ai)f)ly  themselves  to  the  acquiring  of  knowledge,  as  well  in  all  other  libera! 
arts  and  disciplines  as  also  most  or  especially  of  God  and  his  most  holy  word." 


PKOSE    WRITERS.  433 

This  Mattering  description  of  tlie  English  court  is  very  different 
fi'om  that  given  by  Ascham,  in  his  Schoolmaster,  who  tells  us  that, 
although  it  did  indeed  contain  many  fair  examples  for  youth  to 
follow,  yet  they  were,  "  like  fair  marks  in  the  field  out  of  a  man's 
reach,  too  far  off  to  shoot  at  well ;  "  Avhile  the  generality  of  per- 
sons to  be  found  there  were  the  worst  of  characters.  Some  pri- 
vate letters  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  also,  which  have  been  printed, 
describe  the  court  as  a  place  where  there  was  "  little  godliness  and 
exercise  of  religion,"  and  where  "  all  enormities  reignned  in  the 
highest  degree."  .  But  what  it  is  moi'e  important  for  our  present 
purpose  to  observe  is,  that  the  learning  which  existed  in  this  age, 
however  remarkably  it  may  have  shone  forth  in  particular  instan- 
ces, was  by  no  means  generally  diffused  even  among  the  higher 
classes,  while  the  generality  of  the  lower  and  many  even  of  the  mid- 
dle classes  remained  to  the  end  of  the  period  almost  wholly  unedu 
cated  and  illiterate.  It  is  a  question  whether  the  father  of  Shaks- 
peare,  an  alderman  of  Stratford,  could  write  his  name  ;  and  ])rob- 
ably,  throughout  the  community,  for  one  that  was  scholar  enough 
to  subscribe  his  signature  there  were  a  dozen  who  could  only  make 
their  marks.  With  all  the  advancement  the  country  had  made  in 
many  respects,  it  may  be  doubted  if  popular  education  was  farther 
extended  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  than  it  was  at  the 
commencement  of  that  of  her  father  or  her  grandfather.  Even 
the  length  of  time  that  printing  had  now  been  at  work,  and  the 
multiplication  of  books  that  must  have  taken  place,  had  probably 
but  very  little,  if  at  all,  extended  the  knowledge  and  the  habit  of 
reading  among  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  generation  that  grew 
up  immediately  after  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  printing,  and  that 
first  welcomed  tiie  Reformation  and  the  translated  Bible,  perhaps- 
read  more  than  their  grandchildren. 


PROSE   WRITERS.  —  MORE  ;    ELYOT  ;   TYNDAL  ;   CRANMER  ; 

LATIMER. 

The  fact  most  deserving  of  remark  in  the  progress  of  English 
literatnre,  for  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  is  the  cidtiva- 
tion  that  now  came  to  be  bestowed  upon  the  language  in  the  form 

VOL.   I.  55 


i34  ENGLISH    LITERATTTRE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  prose  composition,  —  a  form  always  in  the  order  of  time  subse- 
quent to  that  of  verse  in  the  natural  development  of  a  national  lan- 
miao-e  and  literature.     Long  before  this  date,  indeed,  Chaucer,  in 
addition  to  what  he  did  in  his  proper  field,  had  given  proof  of  how 
far  his  genius  preceded  his  age  by  several  examples  of  composition 
in  pi-ose,  in  which  may  be  discemed  the  presence  of  something  of 
the  same  high  art  \Wth  which  he  first  elevated  our  poetry ;   but, 
besides  that  his  genius  drew  him  with  greatest  force  to  poetry,  and 
that  the  foreign  models  upon  which  he  seems  chiefly  to  have  formed 
himself  led  him  in  the  same  direction,  the  state  of  the  Englisli  lan- 
guage at  that  day  perhaps  fitted  it  better  for  verse  than  for  prose, 
or,  rather,  it  had  not  yet  arrived  at  the  point  at  which  it  could  be 
so  advantageously  employed  in  prose  as  in  verse.     At  all  events 
Chaucer  had  no  worthy  successor  as  a  writer  of  prose,  any  more 
than  as  a  writer  of  poetry,  till  more  than  a  century  after  his  death. 
Meanwhile,  hoAvever,  the  language,  though  not  receiving    much 
artificial  cultivation,  was  still  undergoing  a  good  deal  of  what,  in  a 
certain  sense,  might  be  called  application  to  literary  purposes,  by 
its  employment  both   in  public   proceedings   and  documents,  and 
also  in  many  popular  writings,  principally  on  the   subject  of  the 
new  opinions  in  religion,  both  after  and  previous  to  the  invention 
of  printing.     In  this  more  extended  use  and  exei'cise,  by  persons 
of  some  scholarship  at  least,  if  not  bringing  much  artistic  feeling 
and  skill  to  the  task  of  composition,  it  must,  as  a  mere  language, 
or  system  of  vocables  and  grammatical  forms,  have  not  only  sus- 
tained many  changes  and  modifications,  but,  it  is  probable,  acquired 
.  on  the  whole  considerable  enlargement  of  its  capacities  and  pow- 
ers, and  been  generally  carried  forward  towards  maturity  under 
the    impulse   of  a  vigorous    principle  of  growth   and    expansion. 
But  it  is  not  till  some  time  after  the  commencement  of  the  six- 
teenth century  that  we  can  proi)erly  date  the  rise  of  our  classical 
prose  literature.     Perhaps  the  earliest  compositions  that  are  enti- 
tled to  be  included  under  that  name   are  some  of  those  of  Sir 
Thomas  More,  especially  his  Life  and  Reign  of  King  Edward  Y., 
which  Rastell,  his  brotlier-in-law,  by  whom  it  was  first  printed  in 
1557,  from,  as  he  informs  us,  a  copy  in  More's  handwriting,  states 
to  have  been  written  by  him  when  he  was  under-sheriff  of  Lc»n- 
.don,  in  the  year  lolo.i     Most  of  More's  other  English  writings 

■'  Sir  Henry  Ellis,  liowcver,  in  tlie  Pieface  to  liis  odition  of  ILirding's  Ciironiolo 
(4to   IBl'J).  ),!is  cnllod  attention  to  what  had  not  before  been  noticed,  namely,  that 


PROSE   WRITERS.  435 

are  of  a  controvers'al  character,  and  are  occupied  about  subjects 
both  of  very  temporary  importance,  and  that  called  up  so  much  of 
the  eagerness  and  bitterness  of  the  author's  party-zeal  as  consid- 
erably to  disturb  and  mar  both  his  naturally  gentle  and  benignant 
temper  and  the  oily  eloquence  of  his  style  ;  but  this  historic  piece 
is  characterized  throughout  by  an  easy  narrative  flow  which  rivals 
the  sweetness  of  Herodotus.  It  is  certainly  the  first  English  his- 
toric composition  that  can  be  said  to  aspire  to  be  more  than  a  mere 
chronicle. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  Sir  Thomas  More's  Dialogue 
concerning  Heresies  (chap.  14),  written  in  1528  :  — 

Some  prieste,  to  brins  up  a  pilgrimasre  in  his  parishe,  may  devise  some 
false  felowe  fajniiig  himselfe  to  come  seke  a  saint  in  hys  chyrch,  and  tliere 
sodeinly  say,  tliat  he  hath  gotten  hys  syght.  Than  ^  shall  ye  have  the 
belles  rong  for  a  miracle.  And  the  fonde  folke  of  the  countrey  soon  made 
foles.  Than  women  commynge  thither  with  their  candels.  And  the 
Person  bycnge  of  some  lame  begger  iii  or  iiii  payre  of  theyr  olde  crutches, 
witli  xii  pennes  spent  in  men  and  women  of  wex,  thrnst  thorowe  divers 
])laces,  some  with  arrowes,  and  some  wyth  rnsty  knyves,  wyll  make  his 
offerynges  for  one  vij  yere  worth  twise  hys  tythes. 

Th^^s  is,  qnoth  I,  very  tronth  that  suche  thynges  may  be,  and  sometime 
so  be  in  dede.  As  I  remember  me  that  I  have  hard  my  fiither  tell  of  a 
beo-frer,  that  in  Kyng  Henry  his  daies  the  sixt  cam  with  his  Avife  to  Saint 
Albonis.  And  there  was  walking  about  the  towne  begging,  a  five  or  six 
dayes  before  the  kinges  commynge  thither,  saienge  that  he  was  bonie 
blinde,  and  never  sawe  in  hys  lyfe.  And  was  warned  in  hys  dreame,  that 
he  shonlde  come  out  of  Berwyke,  where  he  said  he  had  ever  dwelled,  to 
seke  Saynt  Albon,  and  that  he  had  ben  at  his  shryne,  and  had  not  bene 
holpen.  And  therefore  he  woulde  go  seke  hym  at  some  other  place,  for  he 
had  hard  some  say  sins  he  came  that  Sainct  Albonys  body  shold  be  at  Colon, 
and  in  dede  such  a  contencion  hath  ther  ben.  IJut  of  troth,  as  I  am  surely 
informed,  he  lieth  here  at  Saint  Albonis,  saving  some  reliques  of  him, 
which  tliei  there  shew  shrined.  But  to  tell  you  forth,  whan  the  kyng  was 
comcn,  and  the   towne  full,  sodaynlye  thys  blind  man,  at  Saint  Albonis 

tlie  writer  speaks  as  if  he  had  been  present  with  Eilward  IV.  in  his  last  sickness, 
which  More  could  not  have  been,  being  then  (in  1483)  only  a  child  of  three  years 
old;  and  Sir  Henry  infers  that  the  manuscript  from  which  the  tract  was  printed  by 
Rastell,  althouiih  ir  More's  handwriting,  could  have  been  only  a  copy  made  by  him 
)f  a  narrative  drawn  up  by  some  one  else,  very  probably  Cardinal  Morton.  But, 
nlthough  Morton  was  a  person  of  distinguished  eloquence,  the  style  is  surely  far 
too  modern  to  have  proceeded  from  a  writer  who  was  born  within  ten  years  after 
tlie  clo?^'  of  the  fourteentli  century,  tlie  senior  of  More  by  seventy  years. 


436  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

shryne  had  his  sight  agayne,  and  a  myracle  solemplj  rongen,  and  Te  Deum 
songen,  so  that  nothyng  was  talked  of  in  al  the  towne,  but  this  myracle. 
So  happened  it  than  that  duke  Humfry  of  Gloeester,  a  great  wyse  man 
and  very  Avel  lerned,  having  great  joy  to  se  such  a  myracle,  called  the 
pore  man  unto  hym.  And  first  sheAving  him  self  joyouse  of  Goddes  glory 
so  shewed  in  the  getting  of  his  sight,  and  exortinge  hym  to  mekenes,  and 
to  none  ascribing  of  any  part  the  worship  to  him  self  nor  to  be  proiide 
of  tlie  peoples  prayse,  which  would  call  hym  a  good  and  a  godly  man 
thereby.  At  last  he  loked  well  upon  his  eyen,  and  asked  whyther  he 
could  never  se  nothing  at  al,  in  all  his  life  before.  And  whan  as  well  his 
wyfe  as  himself  affermed  fastely  no,  than  he  loked  advisedly  upon  his 
eien  again,  and  said,  I  beleve  you  very  wel,  for  me  thinketh  that  ye  can- 
not se  well  yet.  Yea  syr,  quoth  he,  I  thanke  God  and  his  holy  marter,  I 
can  se  nowe  as  well  as  any  man.  Ye  can,  quoth  the  Duke  ;  what  colour 
is  my  gowne  ?  Then  anone  the  begger  told  him.  What  colour,  quoth  he. 
is  this  man's  gowne  ?  He  told  him  also  ;  and  so  forthe,  witliout  any 
sticking,  he  told  him  the  names  of  al  the  colours  that  coulde  bee  shewed 
him.  And  whan  my  lord  saw  that,  he  bad  him  "  walke  faytoure,"  and 
made  him  be  set  openly  in  the  stockes.  For  though  he  coukl  have  sene 
soudenly  by  miracle  the  dyfference  betwene  divers  colours,  yet  coulde  he 
not  by  the  syght  so  sodenly  tel  the  names  of  all  these  colours  but  if  he 
had  known  them  before,  no  more  than  the  names  of  all  the  men  that 
he  should  sodenly  se.  Lo  therfore  I  say,  quod  your  frende,  who  may 
bee  sure  of  such  thynges  whan  such  pageantcs  be  played  before  all  the 
towne  ?  ^ 

The  letter  which  Sir  Thomas  More  wrote  to  his  wife  in  1528, 
after  the  burning  of  liis  house  at  Chelsea,  affords  one  of  the  best 
specimens  of  the  epistolary  style  of  this  period :  — 

Maistres  Alyce,  in  my  most  harty  wise  I  recommend  me  to  you  ;  and, 
whereas  I  am  enfourmed  by  my  son  Heron  of  the  losse  of  our  barnes  and 
of  our  neighbours  also,  with  all  the  corn  tliat  Avas  therein,  albeit  (saving 
God's  pleasure)  it  is  gret  pitie  of  so  much  good  corne  lost,  yet  sith  it  hath 
liked  hym  to  sende  us  such  a  chaunce,  w^e  must  and  are  bounden,  not  only 
to  be  content,  but  also  to  be  glad  of  his  visitacion.  He  sente  us  all  that 
we  have  loste  :  and,  sith  he  hath  by  such  a  chaunce  taken  it  away  againe, 
his  pleasure  be  fulfilled.  Let  us  never  grudge  ther  at,  but  take  it  in  good 
worth,  and  hartely  thank  him,  as  well  for  adversitie  as  for  prosperite.    And 

'  Sir  Thomas  More's  Works,  by  Rastell,  4to.  1557,  p.  134.  This  story,  it  may  be 
remembererl,  is  introduced  in  the  second  part  of  wliatis  called  Sliakospeare's  Henry 
the  Sixth  (Act  ii..  Scene  i.).  And  it  also  occurs  in  the  older  version  of  that  play, 
6rst  puhlished,  so  far  as  is  known,  in  1594,  under  the  title  of  The  first  part  ol  the 
Contention  between  the  two  famous  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster. 


PROSE   WRITERS.  437 

peradventure  we  have  more  cause  to  thank  him  for  our  losse  then  for  our 
winning ;  for  his  wisdome  better  seeth  what  is  good  for  vs  then  we  do  out 
selves.  Therfore  I  pray  you  be  of  good  chere,  and  take  all  the  howsold 
with  you  to  church,  and  there  thanke  God,  both  for  that  he  hath  given  us, 
and  for  that  he  hath  taken  from  us,  and  for  that  he  hath  left  us,  which  if 
it  please  hym  he  can  encrease  when  he  will.  And  if  it  please  hym  to  leave 
us  yet  lesse,  at  his  pleasure  be  it. 

I  pray  you  to  make  some  good  ensearche  what  my  poore  neighboui's 
Lave  loste,  and  bid  them  take  no  thought  therfore :  for  and  I  shold  not 
leave  myself  a  spone,  ther  shal  no  pore  neighbour  of  mine  here  no  losse  by 
any  chaunce  happened  in  my  house.  I  pray  you  be  with  my  cliildren  and 
your  household  merry  in  God.  And  devise  some  what  with  youi-  frendes, 
what  waye  wer  best  to  take,  for  provision  to  be  made  for  corne  for  our 
household,  and  for  sede  thys  yere  comming,  if  ye  thinke  it  good  that  we 
kepe  the  ground  stil  in  oui-  handes.  And  whether  ye  think  it  good  that 
we  so  shall  do  or  not,  yet  I  think  it  were  not  best  sodenlye  thus  to  leave 
it  all  up,  and  to  put  away  our  folke  of  our  farme  till  we  have  somwhat 
advised  us  thereon.  How  belt  if  we  have  more  nowe  then  ye  shall  nede, 
and  which  can  get  them  other  maisters,  ye  may  then  discharge  us  of  them. 
But  I  would  not  that  any  man  were  sodenly  sent  away  he  wote  nere 
wether. 

At  my  comming  hither  I  perceived  none  other  but  that  I  shold  tary  stUl 
with  the  Kinges  Grace.  But  now  I  shal  (I  think),  because  of  this  chance, 
get  leave  this  next  weke  to  come  home  and  se  you :  and  then  shall  we 
further  devyse  together  uppon  all  tliinges  what  order  shalbe  best  to  take. 
And  thus  as  hartely  tare  you  well  ^vith  all  our  children  as  ye  can  wishe. 
At  Woodestok  the  thirde  daye  of  Septembre  by  the  hand  of 

your  louing  husbande 

Thomas  3Ioke  Knight.^ 

'^'^Along  with  More,  as  one  of  the  earhest  writers  of  classic  Eng- 
lish prose,  may  be  mentioned  his  friend  Sir  Thomas  Elyot,  the 
author  of  the  poHtical  treatise  entitled  The  Governor,  and  of 
various  other  works,  one  of  which  is  a  Latin  and  English  Diction- 
ary, the  foundation  of  most  of  the  compilations  of  the  same  kind 
that  were  published  for  a  century'  afterwards.  More  was  executed 
in  1535,  and  Elyot  also  died  some  years  before  the  middle  of  the 
i^enturyy  William  Tyndal's  admii'able  translations  of  the  New 
Testament  and  of  some  portions  of  the  Old,  and  also  numerous 
tracts  by  the  same  early  reformer  in  his  native  tongue,  whicli  he 
wrote  with  remarkable  correctness  as  well  as  with  great  vigor  and 
1  Sir  Thomas  More's  Works,  by  Rastell,  4to.  1557,  pp.  1418,  1419. 


438  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

eloquence,  appeared  between  1526  and  his  death  in  1536.     Next 
in  the  order  of  time  among  our  more  eminent  prose  writers  may 
be  placed  some  of  the  distinguished  leaders  of  the  Reformation  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  and  in  that  of  Edward 
VI.,  more  especially  Archbishop  Cranmer,  whose  compositions  in 
his  native   tongue   are  of  considerable  volume,   and    are    charac- 
terized, if  not  by  any  remarkable  strength  of  expression  or  weight 
of  matter,  yet  by  a  full  and  even  flow  both  of  words  and  thought. 
On    the    whole,    Cranmer    was   the    greatest    writer   among   the 
founders  of  the  English    Reformation.     His  friends    and   fellow- 
laborers,  Ridley  and  Latimer,   were  also  celebrated  in  their  day 
for  their  ready  popular  elocution  ;  but  the  few  tracts  of  Ridley's 
that  remain  are   less  eloquent  than  learned,   and  Latimer's  dis- 
courses are  rather  quaint  and  curious  than  cither  learned  or  elo- 
quent in  any  lofty  sense  of  that  term.     Latimer  is  stated  to  have 
been  one  of  the  first  English  students  of  the  Greek  language  ;  but 
this  could  hardly  be  guessed  from  his  Sermons,  which,  except  a  few 
scraps  of  Latin,  show  scarcely  a  trace  of  scholarship  or  literature 
of  any    kind.     In    addressing   the    people    from   the    pulpit,   this 
honest,  simple-minded  bishop,  feeling  no  exaltation  either  from  his 
position  or  his  subject,  expounded  the  most  sublime  doctrines  of 
religion  in  the  same  familiar  and  homely  language  in  which  the 
humblest  or  most  rustic  of  his  hearers  were  accustomed  to  chaffer 
with  one  another  in  the  market-place  about  the  price  of  a  yard  of 
cloth  or  a  })air  of  shoes.     Nor,  indeed,  was  he  more  fastidious  as  to 
matter  than  as  to  manner:   all   the   preachers   of  that  age  were 
accustomed  to  take  a  wide  range  over  things  in  general ;  but  Lat- 
imer went  beyond  everybody  else  in  the  miscellaneous  assortment 
of  topics  he  used  to  bring  together  fi'om  every  region  of  heaven 
and  earth,  —  of  the  affairs  of  the  world  that  now^  is  as  well  as  of 
that  which  is  to  come.     Without  doubt  his  sermons   must   have 
been  hvely  and  entertaining  far  beyond  the  common  run  of  that 
kind  of  comi)ositions  ;  the   allusions  with  which  they  abounded  to 
public  events,  and  to  life  in   all  its  colors  and  grades,  from  the 
palace  to  the  cottage,  from  the  prince  to  the  peasant,  —  the  anec- 
dotes of  his  own  experience  and   the  other  stories  the  old  man 
would  occasionally  intersperse  among  his  strictures  and  exhorta- 
tions,—  the  exi)ressiveness  of  his  unscrupulous  and  often  startling 
phraseology,  —  all  this,  combined  with  the  earnestness,  piety,  and 
real  goodness  and   sim})licity  of  heart  that  breathed   from  every 


PROSE   WRITERS.  439 

word  he  uttered,  may  well  be  conceived  to  have  had  no  little 
charm  for  the  multitudes  that  crowded  to  hear  his  living  voice  ; 
even  as  to  us,  after  the  lapse  of  three  centuries,  these  sermons  of 
Latimer's  are  still  in  the  highest  degree  interesting  both  for  the 
touches  they  contain  in  illustration  of  the  manners  and  social  con- 
dition of  our  forefathers,  and  as  a  picture  of  a  very  peculiar  indi- 
vidual mind.  They  are  also  of  some  curiosity  and  value  as  a 
monument  of  the  language  of  the  period  ;  but  to  what  is  properly 
to  be  called  its  literature,  as  we  have  said,  they  can  hardly  be  con- 
sidered as  belonoing  at  all. 

The  following  extract  from  Latimer's  third  sermon  preached 
before  King  Edward  VI.  at  Westminster,  22d  March,  1549,  was 
contributed  by  Sir  Henry  Ellis  to  the  Pictorial  History  of  Eng- 
land. "We  copy  the  original  edition,"  says  Sir  Henry,  "with 
all  its  spellings  and  provincialisms ;  a  volume  of  so  great  rarity  as 
not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  libraries  which  have  been  brought 
together  at  the  British  Museum :  "  — 

Syr,  what  forme  of  preachinge  woulde  you  appoynt  me  to  preache  before 
a  kynge  ?  Wold  you  have  me  for  to  preache  nothynge  as  concernynge  a 
kynge  in  the  kyuges  sermon  ?  Have  you  any  commission  to  apoynt  me 
what  I  shall  preach  ?  Besydes  thys,  I  asked  hym  dyvers  other  questions, 
and  he  wold  make  no  answere  to  none  of  them  all.  He  had  nothyng  tc 
say.  Then  I  turned  me  to  the  kyng,  and  submitted  my  selfe  to  his  Grace, 
and  sayed,  I  never  thoughte  my  selfe  worthy,  nor  I  never  sued  to  be  a 
preacher  before  youre  Grace,  but  I  was  called  to  it,  would  be  wyllyng  (if 
you  mislyke  me)  to  geve  place  to  my  betters.  For  I  graunt  ther  be  a 
great  many  more  worthy  of  the  roume  than  I  am.  And,  if  it  be  your 
Grace's  pleasure  so  to  allowe  them  for  preachers,  I  could  be  content  to  here 
ther  bokes  after  theym.  But  if  your  Grace  allowe  me  for  a  preacher  I 
would  desyre  your  Grace  to  geve  me  leave  to  discharge  my  conscience. 
Geve  me  leve  to  frame  my  doctrine  accordyng  to  my  audience.  I  had 
byne  a  very  dolt  to  have  preached  so  at  the  borders  of  your  realm  as  I 
jtreach  before  your  Grace.  And  I  thanke  Almyghty  God,  whycli  hath 
alvvayes  byne  remedy,  that  my  sayinges  were  well  accepted  of  the  kynge, 
tor  like  a  gracious  Lord  he  turned  into  a  nother  communicacyon.  It  ia 
even  as  the  Scripture  sayeth  Cor  Regis  in  man  a  Domini,  the  Lorde 
dyrected  the  kinges  hart.  Certaine  of  my  frendes  came  to  me  wyth 
teares  in  their  eyes,  and  told  me  they  loked  I  should  have  bene  in  the 
Tower  the  same  nyghte.  Thus  have  I  ever  more  bene  burdened  wyth 
ihe  werde  of  sedition.  I  have  offended  God  grevouslye,  transgressyng 
\iys  law,  and  but  for  his  remedy  and  his  raercye  I  wold  not  loke  to  be 


440  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

saved.  As  for  sedicion,  for  ouglite  that  I  knowe,  me  thynkes  I  shoxilde 
not  nede  Christe,  if  I  might  so  saye.  But  if  I  be  cleare  in  any  thynge,  I 
am  clear  in  thys.  So  farre  as  I  kuowe  myne  owne  herte,  there  is  no  man 
further  from  sedicion  then  I,  whyche  I  have  declared  in  all  my  doynges, 
and  yet  it  hath  bene  ever  layed  to  me.  An  othher  tyme,  when  I  gave 
over  myne  otfyce,  I  should  have  receyved  a  certaine  dutye  that  they  call  a 
Pentecostall ;  it  came  to  the  summe  of  fyi'tye  and  tyve  pound,  I  sent  my 
Commissarye  to  gather  it,  but  he  coulde  not  be  suffered.  For  it  was 
sayed  a  sedicion  should  ryse  upon  it. 

Thus  they  burdened  me  ever  wyth  sedicion.  So  thys  gentihnan 
conmieth  up  uovve  wyth  sedicion.  And  wott  ye  what?  I  chaunched  in 
my  last  Sermon  to  speake  a  mery  worde  of  the  Newe  Shilling  (to  refreshe 
my  auditory),  howe  I  was  lyke  to  put  away  my  newe  shillynge  for  an  olde 
grote ;  I  was  herein  noted  to  speake  sediciously.  Yet  I  comfort  my  self 
in  onethyng,  that  I  am  not  alone,  and  that  I  have  a  fellowe.  For  it  is 
consolatio  miserorum,  it  is  the  comforte  of  the  wretched,  to  have  companye. 
When  I  was  in  trouble,  it  was  objected  an  sayed  unto  me  that  I  was 
syngular,  that  no  man  thought  as  I  thought,  that  I  love  a  syngularyte  in 
all  that  I  dyd,  and  that  I  tooke  a  way  contrarye  to  the  kynge  and  the 
whole  parliamente,  and  that  I  was  travayled  wyth  them  that  had  better 
wyttes  then  I,  that  I  was  contrary  to  them  al.  Marye,  syr,  thys  was  a  sore 
thunder  bolte.  I  thought  it  an  yrkesome  thynge  to  be  a  lone,  and  to  have 
no  fellowe.  I  thoughte  it  was  poss}ble  it  myghte  not  be  true  that  they 
tolde  me.  In  the  vii  of  John  tlie  Priestes  sente  out  certayne  of  the  Jewes 
to  bryng  Christ  unto  them  vyolentlye.  When  they  came  into  the  Temple 
and  harde  hym  preache,  they  were  so  moved  wyth  his  preachynge  that 
they  returned  home  agayne,  and  sayed  to  them  that  sente  them,  Nunquam 
sic  locutus  est  homo  ut  hie  homo,  There  was  never  man  spake  lyke  thys 
man.  Then  answered  the  Pharysees,  Num  et  vos  seducti  esfisf  What 
ye  braynsycke  fooles,  ye  hoddy  peckes,  ye  doddye  poulles,  ye  huddes,  do 
ye  beleve  liym  ?  are  ye  seduced  also  ?  Nunquis  ex  Principibus  credidit 
in  eum  ?  Did  ye  see  miy  great  man  or  any  great  offycer  take  hys  part  ? 
doo  ye  se  any  bodily  follow  hym  but  beggerlye  fyshers,  and  suche  as  have 
nothynge  to  take  to  ?  Numquis  ex  Phariseis  ?  Do  ye  se  any  holy  man  ? 
any  perfect  man  ?  any  learned  man  take  hys  parte  ?  Turba  que  ignorat 
legem  execrabilis  est.  Thys  laye  people  is  accursed  ;  it  is  they  that  knowe 
not  the  lawe  that  takes  hys  parte,  and  none. 

Lo  liere  the  Pharises  had  nothynge  to  choke  the  j)eople  wytli  al  but 
ignoi-aunce.  They  dyd  as  oure  byshoppes  of  Englande,  who  apbrayded 
the  pcojde  alwayes  witli  ignoraunce,  wliere  they  were  the  c;iuse  of  it  them 
selv(,'s.  There  were,  sayeth  St.  .John,  Multi  ex  principibus  qui  crediderunt 
in  (inn  :  manye  of  the  chyefe  menne  beleved  in  hym,  and  tliat  was  con- 
trarye to  the  Phurisyes  saying,  Oli  then  by  lyke  they  belyed  him,  he  was 
not  alone. 


PROSE   WRITERS.  441 

So,  thoughte  T,  tliere  be  more  of  myne  opinion  then  I ;  I  thought  I  was 
aot  alone.  I  have  iiovvc  gotten  one  felowe  more,  a  companyon  of  sedytyon, 
and  wot  ye  who  is  my  felowe  ?  Esuye  the  prophete.  I  spake  but  of  a 
lytle  preaty  shyllynge  ;  but  he  speaketh  to  Hieruscdem  after  an  oiner  sorte, 
find  was  so  bold  to  meddle  with  theyr  coine.  Thou  proude,  thou  covetouse, 
thou  hautye  cytye  of  Hierusalem,  Argentmn  tuutn  veisum  est  in  scoriain  ; 
thy  sylver  is  turned  into  what  ?  into  testyons  ?  Scoriam,  into  drosse.  Ah 
sediciouse  wretch,  what  had  he  to  do  wyth  the  mynte  ?  Why  should  not 
he  have  lefte  that  matter  to  some  master  of  policy  to  i-eprove  ?  Thy  silver 
is  drosse,  it  is  not  fine,  it  is  counterfaite,  thy  silver  is  turned,  thou  hadd(!st 
good  sylver.  What  pertayned  that  to  Esay  ?  Mary  he  espyed  a  pece  of 
divinity  in  that  polici,  he  threateneth  them  Gods  vengeance  for  it.  He 
went  to  the  rote  of  the  matter,  which  was  covetousnes.  He  espyed  two 
poyntes  in  it,  that  eythere  it  came  of  covetousnesse  whych  became  liym  to 
reprove,  or  els  that  it  tended  to  tlie  hurte  of  the  pore  people,  for  the 
noughtyiies  of  the  sylver  was  the  occasion  of  dearth  of  all  thynges  in  the 
realme.  He  imputeth  it  to  them  as  a  great  cryme.  He  may  be  called  a 
mayster  of  sedicion  in  dede.  Was  not  this  a  sedyciouse  harlot  to  tell 
them  thys  to  theyr  beardes  ?  to  theyr  face  ? 

Generally  it  may  be  observed,  with  regard  to  the  English  prose 
of  the  earlier  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  that  it  is  both  more 
simple  in  its  construction,  and  of  a  more  jmrely  native  character 
in  other  respects,  than  the  style  which  came  into  fasliion  in  the 
latter  years  of  the  Elizabethan  period.  When  first  made  use  of  in 
prose  composition,  the  mother-tongue  was  written  as  it  was  s])()ken  ; 
even  such  artifices  and  embellishments  as  are  always  prompted  by 
the  nature  of  verse  wei*e  here  scarcely  aspired  after  or  thought  of; 
that  which  was  addressed  to  and  specially  intended  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  people  was  set  down  as  fir  as  possible  in  the  familiar 
forms  and  fashions  of  the  ])opular  speech,  in  genuine  native  words, 
and  direct  unincumbered  sentences  ;  no  painful  imitation  of  anv 
learned  or  foreign  model  was  attempted,  nor  any  s})ecies  of  elab- 
oration wliatever,  except  what  was  necessary  for  mere  perspicuity, 
in  a  kind  of  writing  which  was  scarcely  regarded  as  ])artaking  of 
the  character  of  literary  composition  at  all.  The  delicacy  of  a 
scliolarly  taste  no  doubt  influenced  even  the  English  style  of  such 
writers  as  More  and  his  more  eminent  contemporaries  or  imme- 
diate followers  ;  but  wliatever  eloquence  or  dignity  their  composi- 
tions thus  acquired  was  not  the  effect  of  any  professed  or  conscious 
endeavor  to  write  in  English  as  they  would  have  written  in  what 
were  called  the  learned  tono;ues. 

VOL.  I.  56 


442  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  age,  indeed,  of  the  critical  cultivation  of  the  language  foi 
the  purposes  of  prose  composition  had  already  commenced  ;  but 
at  first  that  object  was  pursued  in  the  best  spirit  and  after  the 
wisest  metliods.  Erasmus,- in  one  of  his  LetterSj^jiientions  that 
his  friend  Dean  Colet  labored  to  improve  his  &iglish  style  by 
the  diligent  perusal  and  study  of  Chaucer  and  the  other  old  poets, 
in  whose  works  alone  the  popular  speech  was  to  be  found  timied 
wltli  any  taste  or  skill  to  a  literary  use  ;  and  doubtless  others  of 
our  earliest  classic  prose  writers  took  lessons  in  their  art  in  the 
same  manner  from  these  true  fathers  of  our  vernacular  literature. 
And  even  the  first  professed  critics  and  reformers  of  the  lan- 
guage that  arose  among  us  proceeded  in  the  main  in  a  right 
direction  and  upon  sound  principles  in  the  task  they  undertook. 
The  appearance  of  a  race  of  critical  and  rhetorical  writers  in  any 
country  is,  in  truth,  always  rather  a  symptom  or  indication  than, 
what  it  has  frequently  been  denounced  as  being,  a  cause  of  the 
corruption  and  decline  of  the  national  literature.  The  writings 
of  Dionysius  of.  Halicarnassiis  and  of  Quintilian,  for  instance, 
certainly  did  not  hasten,  but  probably  rather  contributed  to 
retard,  the  decay  of  the  literature  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome. 
The  first  eminent  English  writer  of  this  class  was  the  celebrated 
Roger  Ascham,  the  tutor  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  Avhose  treatise, 
entitled  Toxophilus,  the  School  or  Partitions  of  Shooting,  was 
published  in  1545.  The  design  of  Ascham,  in  this  performance, 
was  not  only  to  recommend  to  his  countrymen  the  use  of  their 
old  national  weapon,  the  bow,  but  to  set  before  them  an  exainple 
!ind  model  of  a  pure  and  correct  English  prose  style.  In  his 
dedication  of  the  work,  To  all  the  Gentlemen  and  Yeomen  of 
England,  he  recommends  to  him  that  would  write  well  in  a.uj 
tongue  the  counsel  of  Aristotle, —  "To  speak  as  the  common 
peoj)le  do,  to  think  as  wise  men  do."  From  this  Ave  may  perceive 
that  Ascham  liad  a  true  feeling  of  the  regard  due  to  the  great 
fountain-head  and  oracle  of  the  national  language  —  the  vocabulary 
of  the  common  ])eople.  He  goes  on  to  reprobate  the  practice  of 
many  English  writers,  \vlio  by  introducing  into  their  composi- 
tions, in  violation  of  the  Aristotelian  ])recept,  many  words  of 
foreign  origin,  Latin,  French,  and  Italian,  made  all  things  dark 
and  hard.  "  Once,"  he  says,  "  I  commmied  with  a  man  which 
reasoned  tlie  English  tongue  to  be  enriched  and  increased  thereby, 
Baying,  AVho  will  not  praise  that  feast  where  a  man  shall  drink  at 


PROSE   WRITERS.  443 

a  dinner  both  wine,  ale,  and  beer?  Truly,  quoth  I,  thej  be  all 
good,  every  one  taken  by  himself  alone  :  but  if  you  put  malmsey 
and  sack,  red  wine  and  white,  ale  and  beer  and  all,  in  one  pot, 
you  shall  make  a  drink  neither  easy  to  be  known,  nor  yet  whole- 
some for  the  body."  The  English  language,  however,  it  may  be 
observed,  had  even  already  become  too  thoroughly  and  essentially 
a  mixed  tongue  for  this  doctrine  of  purism  to  be  admitted  to  the 
letter ;  nor,  indeed,  to  take  up  Ascham's  illustration,  is  it  univer- 
sally true,  even  in  regard  to  liquids,  that  a  salutary  and  palatable 
l)everage  can  never  be  made  by  the  interfusion  of  two  or  moie 
different  kinds.  Our  tongue  is  now,  and  was  many  centuries 
ago,  not,  indeed,  in  its  grammatical  structure,  but  in  its  vocabu- 
lary, as  substantially  and  to  as  great  an  extent  Neo-Latin  as 
Gothic ;  it  would  be  as  completely  torn  in  pieces  and  left  the 
mere  tattered  rag  of  a  language,  useless  for  all  the  pur])oses  of 
speaking  as  well  as  of  writing,  by  having  the  foreign  as  by  hav- 
ing the  native  element  taken  out  of  it.  Ascham  in  his  own 
wi'itings  uses  many  words  of  French  and  Latin  origin  (the  latter 
mostly  derived  through  the  medium  of  the  French)  ;  nay,  the 
common  people  themselves  of  necessity  did  in  liis  day,  as  they  do 
still,  use  many  such  foreign  words,  or  words  not  of  English 
origin,  and  could  scarcely  have  held  communication  with  one 
another  on  the  most  ordinary  occasions  without  so  doing.  It  is 
another  question  whether  it  might  not  have  been  riiore  fortunate 
if  the  original  form  of  the  national  speech  had  remained  in  a  state 
of  celibacy  and  virgin  purity ;  by  the  course  of  events  the  Gothic 
part  of  the  language  has,  in  point  of  fact,  been  married  to  the 
Latin  part  of  it  ;  and  what  God  or  nature  has  thus  joined  together 
it  is  now  beyond  the  competency  of  man  to  put  asunder.  The 
language,  while  it  subsists,  must  continue  to  be  the  product  of  that 
union,  and  nothing  else.,/  As  for  Ascham's  own  style,  both  in  his 
Toxophllus,  and  in  his  Schoolmaster,  published  in  1571,  three  years 
after  the  author's  death,  it  is  not  only  clear  and  correct,  but  idio- 
matic and  muscular.  That  it  is  not  rich  or  picturesque  is  the  con- 
sequence of  the  character  of  the  writer's  mind,  which  was  rather 
rhetorical  than  poetical.  The  publication  of  Ascham's  Toxophilus 
was  soon  followed  by  an  elaborate  treatise  expressly  dedicated  to 
the  subject  of  English  composition  —  The  Art  of  Rhetorick,  for 
the  use  of  all  such  as  are  studious  of  Eloquence,  set  forth  in  Eng- 
lish, by  Thomas  Wilson.     Wilson,  whose  work  appeared  in  1553, 


444  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

takes  pains  to  impress  the  same  principles  that  Ascham  had  laid 
down  before  him  with  regard  to  purity  of  style  and  the  general 
rule  of  writing  well.  But  the  very  solicitude  thus  shown  by  the 
ablest  and  most  distinguished  of  those  who  now  assumed  the 
guardianship  of  the  vernacular  tongue  to  protect  it  from  having  its 
native  character  overlaid  and  debased  by  an  intermixture  of  terms 
borrowed  from  other  languages,  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that 
such  debasement  was  actually  at  this  time  going  on  ;  that  our 
ancient  English  was  beginning  to  be  oppressed  and  half  suffocated 
by  additions  from  foreign  sources  brought  in  upon  it  faster  than  it 
could  absorb  and  assimilate  them.  Wilson,  indeed,  proceeds  to 
C(jmplain  that  this  was  the  case.  While  some  "  powdered  their 
talk  with  over-sea  language,"  others,  whom  he  designates  as  "  the 
unlearned  or  foolish  fantastical,  that  smell  but  of  learning,"  Avere 
wont,  he  says,  "  so  to  Latin  their  tongues,"  that  simple  persons 
could  not  but  wonder  at  their  talk,  and  think  they  surely  spake  by 
some  revelation  from  heaven.  It  may  be  suspected,  however,  that 
this  affectation  of  unnecessary  terms,  formed  from  the  ancient 
languages,  was  not  confined  to  mere  pretenders  to  learning. 
Another  well-known  critical  writer  of  this  period,  Webster  Put- 
tenham,  in  his  Ai't  of  English  Poesy,  published  in  1582,  but  be- 
lieved to  have  been  written  a  good  many  years  earlier,  in  like 
manner  advises  the  avoidance  in  writing  of  such  words  and  modes 
of  expression  as  are  used  "  in  the  marches  and  frontiers,  or  in  port 
towns  where  strangers  haunt  for  traffic  sake,  or  yet  in  universities, 
where  scholars  use  much  peevish  affectation  of  words  out  of  the 
])rimitive  languages  ;"  and  he  Avarns  his  readers  that  in  some  books 
Avere  already  to  be  found  "  many  inkhorn  terms  so  ill  afi'ected, 
brouglit  in  by  men  of  learning,  as  preacliers  and  schoolmasters, 
and  many  strange  terms  of  other  languages  by  secretaries,  and 
merchants,  and  travellers,  and  many  dark  Avords,  and  not  us\ial 
nor  wfll-sounding,  though  they  be  daily  spoken  at  court."  On 
tlie  Avliole,  however,  Puttenham  considers  the  best  standard  both 
for  sp(^aking  and  writing  to  be  "  the  usual  speech  of  the  coiu't,  and 
that  of  London  and  the  shires  lying  about  London  Avithin  sixty 
miles,  and  not  much  above."  This  jiidgment  is  probably  correct, 
allliough  the  Avriter  Avas  a  gentleman  pensioner,  and  perhaps  also  a 
cockne\-  by  birth. 


SCOTTISH   PROSE   WRITERS. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  few  prose  writers 
had  also  appeared  in  the  Scottish  dialect.  A  digest  of  practical 
theology,  composed  for  the  use  of  King  James  IV.  in  his  native 
tongue,  by  a  priest  called  John  de  Irlandia,  in  the  year  1490,  still 
exists  in  MS.  (apparently  an  autogi'aph  of  the  author),  in  the 
Advocates'  Library  at  Edinburgh.  "  This  work,"  says  Leyden, 
who  has  given  an  account  of  it,  with  some  extracts,  in  the  Prelim- 
inary Dissertation  prefixed  to  his  edition  of  The  Complaint  of 
Scotland,  "  exhibits  a  curious  specimen  of  the  Scottish  language  at 
that  period  ;  and  the  style  as  well  as  the  orth(^graphy  are  more 
uniform,  and  approach  nearer  the  modern  standard,  than  those  of 
some  writers  who  lived  almost  a  century  later."  A  moral  treatise 
entitled  The  Porteous  [that  is,  the  vacle  meeum  or  manual]  of 
Nobleness,  translated  from  the  French  by  Andrew  Cadiou  was 
printed  at  Edinburgh  in  1508.  The  conclusion  of  it,  the  only 
portion  that  is  known  to  have  been  preserved,  is  reprinted  by 
Leyden  in  his  Dissei'tation  (pp.  203-208)  ;  and  also  by  Mr.  David 
Laing,  in  his  collection  entitled  The  Knightly  Tale  of  Golagrus 
and  Gawane,  &c.,  Edin.  1827.  The  Scottish  History  of  Hector 
Boethius,  or  Boecius  (Boece  or  Boyce),  translated  from  the  Latin 
by  John  Bellenden,  was  pi'inted  at  Edinburgh  in  1537  ;  and  a 
translation  by  the  same  pei'son  of  the  first  Five  Books  of  Livy 
remained  in  MS.  till  it  was  published  at  Edinburgh,  in  4to.  in 
1829 ;  a  second  edition  of  the  translation  of  Boecius  having  also 
been  brought  out  there,  in  2  vols.  4to.,  the  same  year.  But  the 
most  remarkable  composition  in  Scottish  prose  of  this  era  is  The 
Complaynt  of  Scotland,  printed  at  St.  Andrews  in  1548,  which  has 
been  variously  assigned  to  Sir  James  Inglis,  knight,  a  country  gen- 
tleman of  Fife,  who  died  in  1554  ;  to  Wedderburn,  the  siapposed 
author  of  the  Compeiidious  Book  of  Godly  and  Spiritual  Sangs 
and  Ballats  (reprinted  from  the  edition  of  1621  by  Sir  John 
Grahame  Dalzell,  8vo.  Edinburgh,  1801)  ;  and  by  its  modern 
editor,  the  late  John  Leyden,  in  the  elaborate  and  ingenious  Dis- 
sertation prefixed  to  his  reprint  of  the  work,  8vo.  Edinburgh,  1301, 
to  the  famous  poet.  Sir  David  Lyndsay.  This  is  a  very  extraor- 
dinary piece  of  writing,  as  a  short  extract  or  two  will  show.  For 
the  better  comparison  of  the  language  in  all   respects  with   that 


446  ENr.LlSII    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

spoken  and  written  in  Enoland  at  tlie  same  date,  we  shall,  in  out 
fii'st  specimen,  preserve  the  orio;inal  spelling.  The  following  is 
from  a  long  episode  which  occurs  in  the  middle  of  the  work, 
entitled   Ane  Monolog  of  the  Actor:  —  ^ 

There  eftir  i  herd  the  rumour  of  rammasche  -  foulis  ande  of  beystis  tliat 
maid  grite  beir,^  quliilk  past  besyde  biirnis  ■*  and  boggis  on  greiie  bankis  to 
seik  ther  sustentatione.  There  brutal  sound  did  redond  to  the  hie  skyis, 
qiihil  the  dcpe  liou  ^  cauernis  of  cleuchis,  and  rotche  ^^  craggis  ansuei-t 
vidit ''  ane  hie  not,  of  that  samyn  sound  as  thay  *  beystis  hed  blauen.  it 
aperit  be  jtresumyng  and  presuposing  that  blaberand  cccho  liad  beene  hid 
in  ane  hou  hole,  cryand  hyr  half  ansueir,  qulien  narcissus  rycht  sorye  socht 
for  his  saruandis,®  quhen  he  vas  in  ane  forrest,  far  fra  ony  fblkis,  and  tliere 
eftir  for  loue  of  eocho  lie  di'ounit  in  ane  dran  vel.  nou  to  tel  treutlit  of 
the  beystis  that  maid  sic  beir,  and  of  the  dyn  that  the  foulis  did,  ther 
syndry  sound  is  hed  nothir  temperance  nor  tune,  for  fyrst  furtht  on  the 
fresche  feildis,  the  nolt  '*^  maid  noyis  vitlit  mouy  loud  lou.  baytlit  horse 
and  meyris  did  fast  nee,  and  tlie  f'oiis  nechyr.^^  the  bullis  began  to  buller,-'^ 
quhen  tlie  scheip  began  to  bhiit,  because  the  caltis  began  tyl  mo,^^  quhen 
die  doggis  berkit.  than  the  suyne  began  to  quhryne  "  quhen  thai  herd 
the  asse  tair,^''  quhilk  gart^"  the  hennis  kekkuP"  quhen  the  cokis  creu,  the 
chekyns  began  to  pen  ^*  quhen  the  gled  ^^  quhissillit.  the  fox  follouit  the 
fed  geise,  and  gart  them  cry  claik.  the  gayslingis  ■''°  cryit  quhilk  quhilk, 
and  the  dukis  cryit  quaik.  the  ropeen  -^  of  the  rauynes  gart  the  eras  crope, 
the  huddit  crauis  cryit  varrok  varrok,  quhen  the  suannis  murnit,  be  cause 
the  gray  goul  ^^  man  pronoslicat  ane  storm,  the  turtil  began  for  to  greit, 
(juhen  the  cuschet  ^^  zoulit.'-*  the  titlene  '^^  follouit  the  goilk,'-"  ande  gart 
hyr  sing  guk  guk.  the  dou  '^  croutit  '^^  hyr  sad  sang  that  soundit  lyik 
sorrou.     robeen  and  the  litil  vran  var  hamely  in  vyntir.     the  iargolyne  -'* 

1  But  this  appears  to  be  a  misprint  (either  of  the  original  or  of  tlie  modern  edi- 
tion, or  of  both)  for  Anctor  or  Antlior.  It  it  not  noticed  in  the  list  of  Errata;  but 
the  editor  in  his  Preliminary  Dissertation,  ji.  101,  quotes  the  title  as  Monologue  of 
the  Author. 

-  Collected.  8  Noisj,  (i,ir,.).  4  iJivnlets. 

^  Hollow.  "  Rock  ;  or,  perhaps,  rock}'  ?      "  With. 

8  Those.  »  Servants.  lo  Neat. 

"  An  imitntive  word  expressing  the  cry  of  a  foal.  ^-  Roar. 

^^  Imitative  word  for  cry  of  a  calf  i*  Imitative  word  for  cry  of  swine 

'^  Imitative  word  for  cry  of  ass.  ^'  Caused. 

^"^  Cackle.  ^^  Imitative  word  for  cry  of  young  birds. 

'^  Glede,  hawk.  -)  Goslings.  -'   Hoarse  cry. 

22  Gull.  *'  Cushat-dove. 

'■^*  Rather  y')'(///,  that  is  howled.  .    -'"''  The  hedge-sparrow. 

2"  The  cuckoo.  -'  Dove.  -*  Imitative  word  tor  cry  of  the  dove 

'^  Jargoning. 


COMPLAYNT  OF  SCOTLAND.  447 

of  the  suallou  gart  the  iay  iangih^  tlian  the  niaueis '^  maid  myiht,  fcr  to 
mok  the  merle.^  the  lauerok  ■*  maid  mehxly  vp  in  the  skyis.  the  nycht- 
ingal  al  the  nycht  sang  sueit  notis.  the  tuechitis  ^  cryit  cheuis  nek  ^ 
quhen  the  piettis'  dattrit.^  the  garniling^  of  the  stirlene  ^°  gart  the 
sparrou  clieip.^^  the  lyntquhit  •''^  sang  cuntirpoint  quhen  the  oszil  ^^  zelpit. 
the  grene  serene  ^^  sang  sueit  quhen  the  gold  spynk  ^^  chantit.  the  rede 
schank  ^^  cryit  my  fut  my  fut,  and  oxee  ^'  eryit  tueit.  the  herrons  gaif 
ane  vyild  skrech  as  the  kyl  hed  bene  in  tier,  quhilk  gart  the  quhapis  ^^ 
for  fieyitnes  ^^  fie  far  fra  hame. 

A  still  more  ostentatious  display  of  the  wealth  of  the  writer's 
native  dialogue  follows,  in  a  descri])tion  of  a  sea-scene,  ending  in  a 
fight.  Into  this  he  has  ])oured  a  complete  dictionary  of  naval  tei'ms, 
some  of  which  set  translation  or  explanation  at  defiance,  but  many 
of  which  are  still  in  familiar  use  among  the  fishing  population  of 
the  sea-coast  of  Fife,  fi'om  wdiom  either  Lyndsay  or  Inglis  would 
be  likely  enough  to  learn  them.  Leyden  describes  them  generally 
as  in  part  of  Norman,  in  part  of  Flemish  origin.  We  will  pass  on, 
and  select  for  oxir  next  extract  a  portion  of  the  author's  natural 
philosophy ;  and  here  we  shall  sti'ip  his  clear  and  expressive  style 
of  the  cumbrous  and  capricious  old  spelling,  which  makes  it  look  as 
if  it  were  all  over  bespattered  with  mud  to  the  eye  of  a  modern 
reader :  — 

Now,  to  speak  of  the  generation  of  tlie  dew,  it  is  ane  himiid  vapour, 
generit  in  the  second  region  of  the  air  in  ane  fair  calm  night,  and  sine  ^° 
descends  in  ane  temperate  caldness  on  the  green  erbs  in  small  drops.  The 
hair  '^^  rime  is  ane  cald  de^v,  the  whilk  falls  in  misty  vapours,  and  sine  it 
freezes  on  the  eird.-^  The  mist,  it  is  the  excrement  or  the  superfluity  of 
the  cluds,  the  whilk  falls  fra  the  air  in  ane  sweet  rain,  whilk  rain  can 
nought  be  persavit  be  the  sight  of  men.  Hail  stones  is  ane  congealit  rain 
whilk  falls  on  the  eird  be  grit  vehemence,  and  it  falls  rather  on  the  day 
light  nor'^  on  the  night.  The  snaw  is  ane  congealit  rain,  frozen  and  con 
gealit  in  the  second  region  of  tlie  air,  and  congeals  in  divers  massive  cluds 

1  Imitative  word  for  cry  of  the  jay.  ^  Thrush.  ^  Blackbird. 

*  Lark.  &  Lapwings 

''  Imitative  word  for  cry  of  lapwings.  "  Magpies.  ^  Chattered. 

^  Garrulous  noise.  ''^  Starling.  "  Make  a  feeble  noise.. 

^2  Linnet. 

1^  The  ouzle,  which  means  sometimes  the  thrush,  sometimes  the  blackbird,  some 
times,  as  here,  apparently  a  different  bird  from  either. 
"  Green  Siren,  or  Green-finch.  i^  Goldfinch.         ^^  Fieldfare. 

^■^  Small  hedge-sparrow.  is  Curlews.  ^^  Fear. 

^'^  Then.  21  Hoar.  22  Earth. 

»  Than. 


448  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

whilk  stops  and  empeslies  ^  the  operation  of  the  planets  to  exerce  thf^ii 
natural  course  ;  than  ^  the  vehemence  of  the  planets  braks  thay  *  cludsj 
fra  tlie  force  of  the  whilk  there  comes  fire,  and  ane  grit  sound,  whilk  is 
terril>le  to  be  hard,  and  that  terrible  sound  is  the  thing  that  %ve  call  the 
thiuider  ;  but  or*  we  hear  tlie  thunder,  we  see  first  the  fire,  howbeit^  that 
they  proceed  at  ane  instant  time.  The  cause  that  we  see  the  fire  or  we 
hear  the  tliunder  is  be  reason  thjit  the  sight  and  clearness  of  ony  thing  is 
mair  swift  towart  us  nor  is  the  sound.  The  evil  that  the  thunder  does  on 
the  eird,  it  is  done  or  we  hear  the  crack  of  it.  Oft  times  we  will  see  fire 
Slaught,®  how  be  it  there  be  na  thunder  hard.  The  thunder  slays  mony 
beasts  on  the  fields  ;  and  when  it  slays  ane  man  that  is  sleepand,  he  sail 
be  funden  dead  and  his  een ''  apen.^  The  thunder  is  maist  dangerous  for 
man  and  beast  when  there  comes  na  rain  wnth  it.  The  fire-slauglit  will 
consume  the  wine  within  ane  pipe  in  ane  deep  cave,  and  the  pipe  will 
resave  na  skaith.  The  fire-slaught  slew  ane  man  on  the  fields,  and  it 
meltit  the  gold  that  was  in  his  bag,  and  it  meltit  nought  the  wax  of  ane 
seal  that  was  in  that  samen  bag.  In  Rome  there  was  ane  noble  princess 
callit  INIartia  grit  with  child  :  she  was  on  the  fields  for  her  recreation,  where 
that  the  fire-slaught  straik  her,  and  slew  her  nought,  but  yet  it  slew  the 
child  in  her  woime.  There  is  tliree  things  that  are  never  in  danger  of 
thunder  nor  fire-slaught :  that  is  to  sa}^,  the  laury  tree  ;  the  second  is  the 
selch,^  whilk  some  men  calls  the  sea  wolf;  the  third  thing  is  the  eyrn," 
that  flees  sa  high.  The  historiographers  rehearses  tliat  Tiberius  Caesar, 
empiror  of  Rome,  had  ever  <uie  liat  of  laure  tree  on  his  head,  and  als  he 
gart  mak  his  pailyons,^^  and  tents  on  tlie  fields  of  selch  skins,  to  that  effect 
that  he  might  be  furth  of  the  danger  of  the  thunder  and  fire-slaught.  The 
best  remede  contrar  thunder  and  fire-slaught  is  to  men  and  women  to  pass 
in  hou  ^^  caverns  under  the  eird,  or  in  deep  caves,  be  cause  the  thunder 
does  maist  damage  till  high  places. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that,  althouo;h  we  have  liere  unquestion- 
ably the  Scottish  dialect,  distinctly  .marked  by  various  peculiarities 
(indeed  the  author,  in  his  prologue  or  preface  expressly  and  repeat- 
edly states  that  he  has  written  in  Scotch,  "  in  our  Scottis  langage," 
as  he  calls  it),  yet  one  chief  characteristic  of  the  modern  Scotch 
is  still  wanting  —  the  suppression  of  the  final  I  after  a  vowel  or 
diphthong  —  just  as  it  is  in  Barbour  and  Blind  Harry.  This 
change,  as  we  before  remarked,  is  probably  very  modern.  It  has 
taken  place  in  all  Hkelihood  since  Scotch  ceased  to  be  generally 
used  in  writing ;   the  pi'inciple  of  grow^th,  which,  after  a  language 

1  Hinders.  2  Then.  »  Those.  *  Ere. 

^  AUhough.  "  Lightning.  "  Eyes.  "  Open. 

9  Seal.  w  Eagle.  "  Pavilions?  1-  Hollow. 


HAVVES;   BARKLAY.  449 

passes  unclei'  the  government  of  the  pen,  is  to  a  great  extent  sus- 
pended, liaving  recovered  its  activity  on  the  dialect  being  abandoned 
again  to  the  comparatively  lawless  liberty,  or  at  least  looser  guar- 
dianship, of  the  lips. 


ENGLISH    POETS  .- HAWES  :   BARKLAY. 

The  English  poetical  literature  of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century  may  be  fairly  described  as  the  dawn  of  a  new  day.  Two 
poetic  names  of  some  note  belong  to  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  — 
Stephen  Ilawes  and  Alexander  Barklay.  Hawes  is  the  author  of 
many  pieces,  but  is  chiefly  remembered  for  his  Pastime  of  Pleasure, 
(ir  History  of  Grand  Amour  and  La  Belle  Pucelle,  first  printed  ])v 
Wynkyn  de  Worde  in  lolT,  but  wi-itten  about  two  years  earlier. 
AVarton  holds  this  performance  to  be  almost  the  only  effort  of 
imagination  and  invention  which  had  appeared  in  our  poetry  since 
Chaucei-,  and  eulogizes  it  as  containing  no  common  touches  of 
romantic  and  allegoric  fiction.  Hawes  was  both  a  scholar  and  a 
traveller,  and  was  perfectly  familiar  with  the  French  and  Italian 
poetry  as  well  as  with  that  of  his  own  country.  It  speaks  very 
little,  however,  for  his  taste,  that,  among  the  preceding  English 
poets,  he  has  evidently  made  Lydgate  his  model,  even  if  it  should 
be  admitted  that,  as  Warton  affirms,  he  has  added  some  new  graces 
to  the  manner  of  that  cold  and  wordy  versifier.  Lydgate  and 
Hawes  may  stand  together  as  })erhai)s  the  two  writers  avIio,  in  the 
century  and  a  half  that  followed  the  death  of  Chancer,  contributed 
most  to  carry  forward  the  regulation  and  modernization  of  the  lan- 
guage which  he  began.  Barklay,  who  did  not  die  till  1552,  when 
he  had  attained  a  great  age,  employed  his  pen  principally  in  trans- 
lations, in  which  line  his  most  celebrated  performance  is  his  Ship 
of  Fools,  from  the  German  of  Sebastian  Brandt,  which  was  })rinted 
m  1508.  Barklay,  however,  besides  consulting  both  a  French  and 
a  Latin  version  of  Brandt's  poem,  has  enlarged  his  original  with 
the  enumeration  and  description  of  a  considerable  variety  of  follies 
which  he  found  flourishing  among  his  own  countrymen.  This 
gives  the  work  some  value  as  a  record  of. the  English  manners  of 
the  time  ;  but  both  its  poetical  and  Its  satirical  pretensions  are  of 
(•he  very  humblest  order.     At  this  date  most  of  our  writers  of  Avhaf 

VOL.  1  57 


450  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

was  called  poetry  seem  to  have  been  occupied  with  the  words  in 
which  they  were  to  clothe  their  ideas  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
the  higher  objects  of  the  poetic  art.  And  that,  perhaps,  is  what 
of  necessity  happens  at  a  particular  stage  in  the  progress  of  a 
nation's  literature — at  the  stage  corresponding  to  the  transition 
state  in  the  groAvth  of  the  human  being  between  the  terminatio?i 
of  free  rejoicing  boyhood  and  the  full  assurance  of  manhood  begun  ; 
which  is  peculiarly  the  season  not  of  achievement  but  of  prepara- 
tion, not  of  accomplishing  ends,  but  of  acquiring  the  use  of  means 
and  instruments,  and  also,  it  may  be  added,  of  the  aptitude  to  mis- 
take the  one  of  these  things  for  the  other. 


SKELTON. 


But  the  poetry  with  the  truest  life  in  it  produced  in  the  reion 
of  Henry  the  Seventh  and  the  earlier  part  of  that  of  his  son  is 
undoubtedly  that  of  Skelton.  John  Skelton  may  have  been  born 
about  or  soon  after  1460  ;  he  studied  at  Cambridge,  if  not  at  both 
universities  ;  began  to  write  and  publish  compositions  in  verse 
between  1480  and  1490  ;  was  graduated  as  poet-laureate  (a  degree 
in  grammar,  including  versification  and  rhetoric)  at  Oxford  before 
1490  ;  was  admitted  ad  eundem  at  Cambridge  in  1493  ;  in  1498 
took  holy  orders ;  was  probably  about  the  same  time  appointed 
tutor  to  the  young  prince  Henry,  afterwards  Henry  the  Eighth ; 
was  eventually  promoted  to  be  rector  of  Diss  in  Norfolk  ;  and 
died  in  1529  in  the  sanctuary  at  Westminster  Abbey,  Avhere  he 
had  taken  refuge  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  Cardinal  Wolsey, 
originally  his  pati-on,  but  latterly  the  chief  butt  at  which  he  had 
been  wont  to  shoot  his  satiric  shafts.  As  a  scholar  Skelton  had  a 
European  reputation  in  his  own  day;  and  the  great  Erasmus  has 
styled  him  Brltannicarum  lUeranim  decus  et  lumen  (the  light  and 
ornament  of  Englisli  letters).  His  Latin  verses  are  distinguished 
by  their  pm-ity  and  classical  sj)ii'it.  As  for  his  English  ])oetry,  it  is 
generally  more  of  a  mingled  yarn,  and  of  a  much  coarser  fabric. 
Li  many  of  his  effusions  indeed,  poured  forth  in  sympathy  with  or 
in  aid  of  some  popular  cry  of  the  day,  he  is  little  better  than  a 
rhyming  buffoon  ;  much  of  his  ribaldry  is  now  nearly  unintelligi- 
ble ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  if  a  considerable  portion  of  his  gro- 


SKELTON.  451 

tesque  and  apparently  incoherent  jingle  ever  had  much  more  than 
the  sort  of  half-meaning  with  which  a  half-tipsy  writer  may  satisfy 
readers  as  far  gone  as  himself.  Even  in  the  most  reckless  of  these 
compositions,  however,  he  rattles  along,  through  sense  and  non- 
sense, with  a  vivacity  that  had  been  a  stranger  to  our  poetry  foi 
many  a  weary  day ;  and  his  freedom  and  spirit,  even  where  most 
unrefined,  must  have  been  exhilarating  after  the  long  fit  of  somno- 
lency in  which  the  English  muse  had  dozed  away  the  last  hundred 
years.  But  much  even  of  Skelton's  satiric  verse  is  instinct  with 
genuine  poetical  vigor,  and  a  fancy  alert,  sparkling,  and  various,  to 
a  wonderful  degree.  It  is  impossible,  where  the  style  and  manner 
are,  if  not  so  discursive,  at  least  so  rushing  and  river-like,  to  give 
any  complete  idea  of  the  effect  by  extracts ;  but  we  will  transcribe 
a  small  portion  of  the  bitterest  of  his  attacks  upon  Wolsey,  his 
satire,  or  '*  little  book,"  as  he  designates  it,  entitled  Why  come  ye 
not  to  court  ?  extending  in  all  to  nearly  1300  lines :  — 

Our  barons  be  so  bold 
Into  a  mouse-hole  they  wold 
Rin  away  and  creep, 
Like  a  meiny  of  sheep  ; 
Dare  not  look  out  at  dur 
For  dread  of  the  mastiff  cur, 
For  dread  of  the  butcher's  dog 
Wold  wirry  them  like  an  hog. 

For  an  this  cur  do  gnar 
•  They  must  stand  all  afar, 
To  hold  up  their  hand  at  the  bar. 
For  all  their  noble  blood, 
He  plucks  them  by  the  hood, 
And  shakes  them  by  the  ear, 
And  brings  them  in  such  fear; 
He  baiteth  them  like  a  bear, 
Like  an  ox  or  a  bull : 
Their  wits  he  saith  are  dull ; 
He  saith  they  have  no  brain 
Their  estate  to  maintain, 
And  maketh  them  to  bow  their  knee 
Before  his  majesty. 

In  the  chancery  where  he  sits, 
But  such  as  he  admits 


452  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

None  so  hardy  as  to  speak : 

He  saith,  Thou  huddypeke, 

Thy  learning  is  too  lewd, 

Thy  tongue  is  not  well  thewd,' 

To  seek  ^  before  our  grace  ; 

And  openly  in  that  place 

He  rages  and  he  raves, 

And  calls  them  cankered  knaves. 

Thus  royally  doth  he  deal 

Under  the  king's  broad  seal ; 

And  in  the  Checker  he  them  checks ; 

In  the  Star  Chamber  he  nods  and  becks, 

And  beareth  him  there  so  stout 

That  no  man  dare  rowt.^ 

Duke,  earl,  baron,  nor  lord,* 

But  to  his  sentence  must  accord  ; 

Whether  he  be  knight  or  squire, 

All  men  must  follow  his  desire. 

But  this  mad  Amalek 
Like  to  a  Mamelek,® 
He  regardeth  lords 
No  more  than  potshords ; 
He  is  in  such  elation 
Of  his  exaltation, 
And  the  supportation 
Of  our  sovereign  lord, 
Tliat,  God  to  record,® 
He  ruleth  all  at  avIII, 
Without  reason  or  skill ;  ' 
Howbeit  the  primordial 
Of  his  wretched  original, 
And  his  base  progeny,^ 
And  his  greasy  genealogy, 
He  came  of  the  sank  royal ' 
That  was  cast  out  of  a  butcher's  stalL 

He  would  dry  up  the  streams 
Of  nine  kings'  reams,^" 

*  Well-mannered. 

'  In  orii^inal  spelling  seke.  Qy. :  A  typoE^raphical  error  for  speke  (or  speak)  * 

'  Snort.  *  That  is,  no  duke,  &c.                           ^  Mamel'ike 

'  Witness.  '  Kegard  to  proi)riety. 

'  Progenitorship'?  »  Sangue  royal,  blood  royal.                  i°  Realms. 


SKELTON  458 

All  rivers  and  wells, 
All  water  that  swells  ; 
For  with  us  he  so  mells 
That  within  England  dwells, 
I  wold  he  were  somewhere  else 
For  else  by  and  by 
He  will  drink  us  so  dry, 
And  suck  us  so  nigh, 
That  men  shall  scantly 
Have  penny  or  halfpenny. 
God  save  his  noble  grace, 
And  grant  him  a  place 
Endless  to  dwell 
With  the  devil  of  heU! 
For,  an  he  were  there, 
We  need  never  fear 
Of  the  feindes  blake  ; 
For  I  undertake 
He  wold  so  brag  and  crake, 
That  he  wold  than  make 
The  devils  to  quake, 
To  shudder  and  to  shake. 
Like  a  fire-drake,''' 
And  with  a  coal  rake 
Bruise  them  on  a  brake,' 
And  bind  them  to  a  stake, 
And  set  hell  on  fire 
At  his  own  desire. 
He  is  such  a  grim  sire. 
And  such  a  potestolate,* 
And  such  a  potestate, 
That  he  wold  brake  the  brains 
Of  Lucifer  in  his  chains. 
And  rule  them  each  one 
In  Lucifer's  trone.^ 
I  wold  he  were  gone. 
For  among  us  is  none 
That  ruleth  but  he  alone. 
Without  all  good  reason. 
And  all  out  of  season,  &c. 

1  Meddles.  ^  Fiery  dragon.  '  Engine  of  tortura 

•  "  Equivalent,  I  suppose,  to  legate."  —  Dj/ce.  '  Throne. 


454  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

Another  of  Skelton's  satirical  invectives,  his  Bouge  of  Court 
(that  is,  Bouche.  a  Court,  diet  allowed  at  court),  which  is  written 
in  the  common  stanza  of  seven  decasyllabic  lines,  and  altogether 
with  much  more  sobriety,  has  some  strong  allegorical  painting, 
but  in  a  hard  and  heavy  style  ;  and  the  force  is  also  more  con- 
spicuous than  the  invention.  Another  of  his  productions  is  a 
drama,  entitled  Magnificence,  a  Goodly  Interlude  and  a  Merry, 
in  rhyme,  and  running  to  nearly  2600  long  lines,  the  characters 
being  Felicity,  Liberty,  Measure,  Counterfeit  Countenance,  Crafty 
Conveyance,  Cloaked  Collusion,  Courtly  Abusion,  and  other  such 
shadowy  personages.  But  Skelton's  brightest  and  in  all  respects 
happiest  poetry  is  surely  what  of  it  is  neither  allegorical  nor  satiri- 
cal. The  charm  of  his  writing  lies  in  its  natural  ease  and  freedom, 
its  inexhaustible  and  untiring  vivacity  ;  and  these  qualities  are 
found  both  in  their  greatest  abundance  and  their  greatest  purity 
where  his  subject  is  suggestive  of  the  simplest  emotions  and  has 
most  of  a  universal  interest.  His  Book  of  Philip  Sparrow,  for 
instance,  an  elegy  on  the  sparrow  of  fair  Jane  Scroop,  slain  by  a 
cat  in  the  nunnery  of  Carow,  near  Norwich,  extending  (with  the 
"  commendation  "  of  the  "  goodly  maid  ")  to  nearly  1400  lines,  is 
unrivalled  in  the  language  for  elegant  and  elastic  playfulness,  and 
a  spirit  of  whim  that  only  kindles  into  the  higher  blaze  the  longer 
it  is  kept  up.  The  second  part,  or  "  Commendation,"  in  particular, 
is  throughout  animated  and  hilarious  to  a  wonderful  degree :  — 
the  refrain, — 

For  this  most  goodly  flower, 

This  blossom  of  fresh  colour, 

So  Jupiter  me  succour, 

She  flourisheth  new  and  new 

In  beauty  and  virtue  ; 

Hac  cluritate  gemina, 

0  Gloriosa  femina,  &c., — 

recurring  often  so  suddenly  and  unexpectedly,  yet  always  so  natu- 
rally, has  an  effect  like  that  of  the  harmonious  evolutions  of  some 
lively  and  graceful  dance.  Have  we  not  in  this  poem,  by  the  by, 
the  true  origin  of  Skelton's  peculiar  dancing  verse  ?  Is  it  not  Anac- 
reontic, as  the  spirit  also  of  the  best  of  his  poetry  undoubtedly  is?' 

'  A  rnoBt  valuable  and  acceptable  present  has  been  made  to  the  lovers  of  our  old 
poetry  in  a  collected  edition  of  Skelton's  Poetical  Works,  2  vols.  8vo.  Lond.  Rodd, 
1843,  by  the  Rev.  Alexander  l)3'ce,  who  has  performed  his  difficult  task  iu  a  man- 
lier to  leave  little  or  nothinur  furtlier  to  be  desired. 


ROY;  JOHN   HEYWOOD. 

A.LONG  with  Skelton,  viewed  as  he  commonly  has  been  only  as 
a  satirist,  is  usually  classed  William  Roy,  a  writer  who  assisted 
Tyndal  in  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  and  who  is 
asserted  by  Bale  to  be  the  author  of  a  singular  work  entitled, 
Read  me  and  be  not  wroth.  For  I  say  nothing  but  troth,  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  first  printed  abroad  about  1525.^  This 
is  also  a  satire  upon  Wolsey  and  the  clergy  in  general,  and  is  as 
bittei'  as  might  be  expected  from  the  supposed  author,  who,  having 
begun  his  life  as  a  friar,  spent  the  best  part  of  it  in  the  service  of 
the  Reformation,  and  finished  it  at  the  stake.  Among  the  buffoon- 
poets  of  this  age  is  also  to  be  reckoned  John  Heywood,  styled  the 
Epigrammatist,  fit'om  the  six  centuries  of  Epigrams,  or  versified 
jokes,  which  form  a  remarkable  portion  of  his  works.  Heywood's 
conversational  jocularity  has  the  equivocal  credit  of  having,  been 
exceedingly  consoling  both  to  the  old  age  of  Henry  VIII.  and  to 
his  daughter  Queen  Mary :  it  mvist  have  been  strong  jesting  that 
coiild  stir  the  sense  of  the  ludicrous  in  either  of  these  terrible 
personages.  Besides  a  number  of  plays,  which  are  the  most  im- 
portant of  his  productions,  Heywood  also  wrote  a  long  burlesqvie 
allegory,  which  fills  a  thick  quarto  volume,  on  the  dispute  between 
the  old  and  the  new  religions,  under  the  title  of  A  Parable  of  the 
Spider  and  the  Fly  ;  where  it  appears  that  by  the  spider  is  intended 
the  Protestant  party,  by  the  fly  the  Catholic,  but  in  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  judgment  of  old  Harrison,  "  he  dealeth  so  profoundly, 
and  beyond  all  measure  of  skill,  that  neither  he  himself  that  made 
it,  neither  any  one  that  readeth  it,  can  reach  unto  the  meaning 
thereof."  2 


SCOTTISH   POETS :  — GAWIN   DOUGLAS;    DUNBAR;   LYNDSAl. 

But,  while  in  England  the  new  life  to  which  poetry  had  awak- 
3ned  had  thus  as  yet  produced  so  little  except  ribaldry  and  buf- 
foonery, it  is  remarkable  that  in  Scotland,  where  general  social 
civilization  was  much  less  advanced,  the  art  had  continvied  to  be 

^  Ritson's  Bibliog.  Poet.,  p.  318.  ^  Description  of  England. 


■ioQ  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

cultivated  in  its  highest  departments  with  great  success,  and  the 
language  had  ah'eady  been  enriched  with  some  compositions  wortliy 
of  any  age.  Perhaps  the  Scottish  poetry  of  the  earher  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century  may  be  regarded  as  the  same  spring  which 
liad  visited  Enghind  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourteenth,  —  the 
impulse  originally  given  by  the  poetry  of  Chaucer  only  now  come 
to  its  height  in  that  northern  clime.  Gawin  Douglas,  Bishop  of 
Dunkeld,  who  flourished  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  who  is  famous  for  his  translation  of  the  JEneid,  the  first 
metrical  version  of  any  ancient  classic  that  had  yet  appeared  in 
the  dialect  of  either  kingdom,  affects  great  anxiety  to  eschew 
"  Southron,"  or  English,  and  to  write  his  native  tongue  in  all  its 
breadth  and  plainness ;  but  it  does  not  follow,  from  his  avoidance 
of  English  words,  that  he  may  not  have  formed  himself  to  a  great 
extent  on  the  study  of  English  models.  At  the  same  time  it  may 
be  admitted  that  neither  in  his  translation  nor  in  his  orimnal  works 
of  King  Hart,  and  the  Palace  of  Honour,  —  which  are  two  long 
allegories,  full,  the  latter  especially,  of  passages  of  great  descriptive 
beauty,  —  does  Douglas  convict  himself  of  belonging  to  the  school 
of  Chaucer.  He  is  rather,  if  not  the  founder,  at  least  the  chief 
representative,  of  a  style  of  poetry  which  was  attempted  to  1  e 
formed  in  Scotland  by  enriching  and  elevating  the  simplicity  of 
Barbour  and  his  immediate  followers  with  an  infusion  of  something 
of  what  was  deemed  a  classic  manner,  drawn  in  part  directly  from 
the  Latin  writers,  but  more  from  those  of  the  worst  than  those  of 
the  best  age,  in  part  from  the  French  poetry,  which  now  began  in 
like  manner  to  aspire  towards  a  classic  tone.  This  preference,  by 
the  Scottish  poets,  of  Latin  and  French  to  "  Southron,"  as  a  source 
fi'oin  which  to  supply  the  deficiencies  of  their  native  dialect,  had 
probably  no  more  reasonable  origin  than  the  political  circumstances 
and  feelings  of  the  nation  :  the  spirit  of  the  national  genius  was 
antagonistic  to  it,  and  it  therefore  never  could  become  more  than 
a  temporary  fashion.^  Yet  it  infected  more  or  less  all  the  writers 
of  this  age  ;  and  amongst  the  rest,  to  a  considerable  extent,  by 
far  the  greatest  of  them  all,  William  Dunbar.  This  admirable 
iiiaster,  alike  of  serious  and  of  comic  song,  may  justly  be  styled 
the  Chaucer  of  Scotland,  whether  we  look  to  the  wide  range  of 

'  Douglas's  Palace  of  Honour  was  reprinted  for  tlie  Bannatyne  Club,  4to.  Edin. 
1827  ;  and  two  vols,  of  a  new  edition  of  his  translation  of  the  jEncid  liave  also 
Iteen  produced  by  the  same  association,  -Ito.  Edin.  1839. 


SURREY;   WYATT.  457 

his  genius,  ox-  to  his  eminence  in  every  style  over  all  the  poets  of 
his  country  who  preceded  and  all  who  for  ages  came  after  him. 
That  of  Burns  is  certainly  the  only  name  among  the  Scottish  poets 
tliat  can  yet  be  placed  on  the  same  line  with  that  of  Dunbar  ;  and 
even  the  inspired  ploughman,  though  the  equal  of  Dunbar  in  comic 
power,  and  his  superior  in  depth  of  passion,  is  not  to  be  compared 
\%ith  the  elder  poet  either  in  strength  or  in  general  fertility  of 
imagination.^  Finally,  to  close  the  list,  comes  another  eminent 
name,  that  of  Sir  David  Lyndsay,  whose  productions  are  not  in- 
deed characterized  by  any  high  imaginative  power,  but  yet  display 
infinite  wit,  spirit,  and  vax'iety  in  all  the  forms  of  the  more  familiar 
poetry.  Lyndsay  was  the  favorite,  throughout  his  brief  reign  and 
life,  of  the  accomplished  and  unfortunate  James  V.,  and  survived 
to  do  perhaps  as  good  service  as  any  in  the  war  against  the  ancient 
church  by  the  tales,  plays,  and  other  products  of  his  abounding 
satiric  vein,  with  which  he  fed  and  excited  and  lashed  up  the 
popular  contempt  for  the  now  crazy  and  tumbling  fabric  once  so 
imposing  and  so  venerated.  Perhaps  he  also  did  no  harm  by  thus 
takino;  off  a  little  of  the  acrid  ediie  of  mere  resentment  and  indiji- 
]iation  with  the  infusion  of  a  dash  of  merriment,  and  keeping  alive 
a  genial  sense  of  the  ludicrous  in  the  midst  of  such  serious  work. 
If  Dunbar  is  to  be  compared  to  Burns,  Lyndsay  may  be  said  to 
liave  his  best  representative  among  tlie  more  i^ecent  Scottish 'poets 
in  Allan  Ramsay,  who  does  not,  however,  come  so  near  to  Lyndsay 
by  a  long  way  as  Burns  does  to  Dunbar.^ 


SURREY;    WYATT. 

Lyndsay  is  supposed  to  have  survived  till  about  the  year  1567.^ 
Before  that  date  a  revival  of  the  higher  poetry  had  come  upon 
England  like  the  rising  of  a  new  day.     Two  names  are  commonly 

^  Portions  of  Dunbar's  poetry  had  been  previously  published  from  the  MSS.  by 
Ramsay,  Hailes,  and  Pinkerton ;  but  the  only  complete  edition  is  that  entitled  The 
Poems  of  William  Dunbar,  now  first  collected,  with  Notes,  and  a  Memoir  of  hia 
Ufe,  by  David  Laing:  2  vols.  8vo.  Edin.  1834. 

^  The  Poetical  Works  of  Sir  David  Lindsay,  with  a  Life,  Glossary,  and  illustra- 
tive  Dissertations  and  Notes,  were  published  by  the  late  George  Chalmers,  in  3 
^ols.  8vo.  London,  1806. 

3  Irving's  Lives  of  the  Scottish  Poets.     2d  edit.  1810,  ii.  85. 
VOL.  I,  58 


458  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

placed  together  at  the  head  of  our  new  poetical  literature,  —  Lord 
Surrey  and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt.  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey, 
memorable  in  our  history  as  the  last  victim  of  the  capricious  and 
sanguinary  tyranny  of  Henry  VIII.,  had  already,  in  his  short 
life,  which  was  terminated  by  the  axe  of  the  executioner  in  his 
twenty-seventh  year,  carried  aAvay  from  all  his  countrymen  the 
laurels  both  of  knighthood  and  of  song.  The  superior  polish  alone 
of  the  best  of  Surrey's  verses  would  place  him  at  an  immeasui'able 
distance  in  advance  of  all  his  immediate  predecessors.  So  remark- 
able, indeed,  is  the  contrast  in  this  respect  which  his  poetry  pre- 
sents to  theirs,  that  in  modern  times  there  has  been  claimed  for 
Surrey,  as  we  have  seen,  the  honor  of  having  been  the  first  to 
introduce  our  existing  system  of  rhythm  into  the  language.  The 
true  merit  of  Surrey  is,  that,  proceeding  upon  the  same  system  of 
versification  which  had  been  introduced  by  Chaucer,  and  which, 
indeed,  had  in  principle  been  followed  by  all  the  writers  after 
Chaucer,  however  rudely  or  imperfectly  some  of  them  may  have 
succeeded  in  the  practice  of  it,  he  restored  to  our  poetry  a  correct- 
ness, polish,  and  general  spirit  of  refinement  such  as  it  had  not 
known  since  Chaucer's  time,  and  of  which,  therefore,  in  the  lan- 
guage as  now  spoken,  there  was  no  previous  example  whatever. 
To  this  it  may  be  added  that  he  appears  to  have  been  the  first,  at 
least  in  this  age,  who  sought  to  modulate  his  strains  after  that  elder 
poetiy  of  Italy,  which  thenceforward  became  one  of  the  chief 
fountain-heads  of  inspiration  to  that  of  England  throughout  the 
whole  space  of  time  over  which  is  shed  the  golden  light  of  the 
names  of  Spenser,  of  Shakspeare,  and  of  Milton.  Surrey's  own 
imagination  was  neither  rich  nor  soaring ;  and  the  highest  qualities 
of  his  poetiy,  in  addition  to  the  facility  and  general  mechanical 
perfection  of  the  versification,  are  delicacy  and  tenderness.  It  is 
altogether  a  very  light  and  bland  Favonian  breeze.  The  poetry 
of  his  friend  Wyatt  is  of  a  different  character,  neither  so  flowing 
in  form  nor  so  uniformly  gentle  in  spirit,  but  perhaps  making  up 
for  its  greater  ruggedness  by  a  force  and  a  depth  of  sentiment  occa- 
sionally which  Surrey  does  not  reach.  The  poems  of  Lord  Surrey 
and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  were  first  published  together  in  1557. 

We  give  one  of  Surrey's  Sonnets  in  praise  of  his  mistress,  the 
Fair  Geraldine,  from  Dr.  Nott's  edition  of  his  Poems.^  The  spell- 
ing is  modernized :  — 

^  Works  of  Henry  Howartl  Earl  of  SuiTey,  and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  the  Elder 
4to.  Lond.  1815 ;  vol.  i.  p.  4. 


SURREY;  WYATT.  i59 

Give  place,  ye  lovers,  here  before 

That  spent  your  boasts  and  brags  in  vain! 
My  lady's  beauty  passeth  more 

The  best  of  yours,  I  dare  well  sayn. 
Than  doth  the  sun  the  candle-light. 
Or  brightest  day  the  darkest  night. 

And  thereto  hath  a  troth  as  just 

As  liad  Penelope  the  fair ; 
For  what  she  saith  ye  may  it  trust, 
As  it  by  writing  sealed  were  : 
And  virtues  hath  she  many  mo 
Than  I  with  pen  have  skill  to  show. 

I  could  rehearse,  if  that  I  would. 

The  whole  effect  of  Nature's  plaint, 
When  she  had  lost  the  perfit  mould. 
The  like  to  whom  she  could  not  paint : 
With  wringing  hands  how  she  did  cry,. 
And  what  she  said,  I  know  it,  I. 

I  know  slie  swore  with  raging  mind. 

Her  kingdom  only  set  apart. 
There  was  no  loss  by  law  of  kind 

That  could  have  gone  so  near  her  heart : 
And  this  was  chiefly  all  her  pain  ; 
"  She  could  not  make  the  like  again." 

Sith  Nature  thus  gave  her  the  praise, 

To  be  the  chiefest  work  she  wrought, 
In  faith,  methink,  some  better  Avays 
On  your  behalf  might  well  be  sought, 
Than  to  compare,  as  ye  have  done, 
To  match  the  candle  with  the  sun. 

To  Surrey  we  owe  the  introduction  into  the  language  of  our 
[(resent  form  of  blank  verse,  the  suggestion  of  which  he  probably 
took  from  the  earliest  Italian  example  of  that  form  of  poetiy,  a 
translation  of  the  First  and  Fourth  Books  of  the  ^neid  by  the 
Cardinal  Hippolito  de'  Medici  (or,  as  some  say,  by  Francesco 
Maria  Molza),  which  was  published  at  Venice  in  1541.  A  trans- 
lation of  the  same  tAvo  Books  into  English  blank  verse  appeared 
in  the  collection  of  Surrey's  Poems  published  by  Tottel  in  1557. 
Dr.  Nott  has  shown  that  this  translation  Avas  founded  upon   the 


•460  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

metrical  Scottish  version  of  Gawin  Douglas,  which,  although  not 
published  till  1553,  had  been  finished,  as  the  author  himself  informs 
us,  in  1513.  But  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that,  as  already 
remarked,  we  have  one  example  at  least  of  another  form  of  blank 
verse  in  the  Ormulum,  centuries  before  Surrey's  day. 

The  following  earnestly  passionate  lines  by  Wyatt  are  supposed 
to  have  been  addressed  to  Anne  Boleyn  :  — 

Forget  not  yet  the  tried  intent 
Of  such  a  truth  as  I  have  meant ; 
My  great  travail  so  gladly  spent 
Forget  not  yet ! 

Forget  not  yet  when  first  began 
The  weary  life,  ye  know  since  whan ; 
The  suit,  the  service,  none  tell  can 
Forget  not  yet ! 

Forget  not  yet  the  great  assays  ; 
The  cruel  wrong,  the  scornful  ways, 
The  painful  patience  in  delays, 
Forget  not  yet ! 

Forget  not !  oh  !  forget  not  this  ! 
How  long  ago  hath  been,  and  is. 
The  mind  that  never  meant  amiss, 
Forget  not  yet ! 

Forget  not  tlien  thine  own  approved. 
The  which  so  long  hath  thee  so  loved, 
Whose  steadfast  faith  yet  never  moved ; 
Forget  not  this  ! 


THE   ELIZABETHAN   LITERATURE. 


Of  what  is  commonly  called  oiir  Elizabethan  literature,  the  greater 
portion  appertains  to  the  reign,  not  of  Elizabeth,  but  of  James  — 
to  the  seventeenth,  not  to  the  sixteenth  century.  The  common 
name,  nevertheless,  is  the  fair  and  proper  one.  It  sprung  up  in 
the  age  of  Elizabeth,  and  was  mainly  the  product  of  influences 
which  belono;ed  to  that  age,  althouo;h  their  effect  extended  into 
another.  It  was  born  of  and  ripened  by  that  sunny  morning  of  a 
new  day,  —  "  great  Eliza's  golden  time,"  — when  a  general  sense 
of  security  had  given  men  ease  of  mind  and  disposed  them  to  fi*ee- 
dom  of  thought,  while  the  economical  advancement  of  the  country 
put  life  and  spirit  into  everything,  and  its  growing  power  and 
renown  filled  and  elevated  the  national  heart.  But  such  periods 
of  quiet  and  prosperity  seem  only  to  be  intellectually  productive 
when  they  have  been  preceded  and  ushered  in  by  a  time  of  uncer- 
tainty and  struggle  which  has  tried  men's  spirits  :  the  contrast 
seems  to  be  wanted  to  make  the  favorable  influences  be  felt  and 
tell ;  or  the  faculty  required  must  come  in  part  out  of  the  strife 
and  contention.  The  literature  of  our  Elizabethan  age,  more  em- 
phatically, may  be  said  to  have  had  this  double  parentage :  if  that 
brilliant  day  was  its  mother,  the  previous  night  of  storm  was  its 
father. 


THE   MIRROR   FOR  MAGISTRATES. 

Our  classical  Elizabethan  poetry  and  other  literature  dates  only 
from  about  the  middle  of  the  reign  ;  most  of  what  was  produced 
in  the  earlier  half  of  it,  constrained,  harsh,  and  immature,  still 
bears  upon  it  the  impress  of  the  preceding  barbarism.  Nearly 
coincident  with  its  commencement  is  the  first  appearance  of  a  sin- 
gular work.  The  Mirror  for  Magistrates.  It  is  a  co'lecti.in  of  nar- 
ratives of  the   lives  of  various  remarkable  Enghr_,u   iiisTorical   ))<■' 


462  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

sonages,  taken,  in  general,  with  little  more  embellishment  than 
their  reduction  to  a  metrical  form,  from  the  common  popular  chron- 
icles ;  and  the  idea  of  it  appears  to  have  been  borrowed  from  a 
Latin  work  of  Boccaccio's,  which  had  been  translated  and  versi- 
fied many  years  before  by  Lydgate,  under  the  title  of  The  Fall  of" 
Princes.  It  was  planned  and  begun  (it  is  supposed  about  the 
year  1557)  by  Thomas  Sackville,  afterwards  distinguished  as  a 
statesman,  and  ennobled  by  the  titles  of  Lord  Buckhurst  and  Earl 
of  Dorset.  But  Sackville  soon  found  himself  obliged  to  relinquish 
the  execution  of  his  extensive  design,  which  contemplated  a  sur- 
vey of  the  whole  range  of  Enghsh  history  from  William  the  Con- 
queror to  the  end  of  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  to  other  hands.  The 
two  writers  to  whom  he  recommended  the  carrying  on  of  the  work 
were  Richard  Baldwynne,  who  was  in  orders,  and  had  already 
published  a  metrical  version  of  the  Song  of  Solomon,  and  George 
Ferrers,  who  was  a  person  of  some  rank,  having  sat  in  Parliament 
in  the  time  of  Henry  VIIL,  but  who  had  lattei-ly  been  chieflv 
known  as  a  composer  of  occasional  interludes  for  the  diversion  of 
the  Court.  It  is  a  trait  of  the  times  that,  although  a  member  of 
Lincoln's  Inn,  and  known  both  as  a  legal  and  an  liistorical  author, 
Ferrers  was  in  1552-3  appointed  by  Edward  VI.  to  j^reside  over 
the  Christmas  revels  at  the  royal  palace  of  Greenwich  in  the  office 
of  Lord  of  jNIisrule  :  Stow  tells  us  that  upon  tliis  occasion  he  "  so 
pleasantly  and  wisely  behaved  himself,  that  the  king  had  great 
delight  in  his  pastimes."  ^  Baldwynne  and  Ferrers  called  other 
writers  to  their  assistance,  among  whom  were  Thomas  Church- 
yard, Phaer,  the  translator  of  Virgil,  &c. ;  and  the  book,  in  its  first 
form  and  extent,  Avas  jmblished  in  a  quarto  volume  in  1559.  "  The 
work,"  says  Baldwynne,  in  his  Dedication  "To  the  Nobility'"  <>f 

1  "  On  Monday  the  4th  of  Janu.ary,"  the  Chronicler  ndcls,  "  the  said  Lord  of 
Merry  Disports  came  by  water  to  London,  and  landed  at  the  Tower-wharf,  entered 
the  Tower,  and  then  rode  tlirouph  Tower-street,  where  he  was  received  by  Ser- 
ffeant  Vawce,  Lord  of  Misrule  to  John  Mninard,  one  of  the  sheriffs  of  London,  and 
so  conducted  tiirough  the  city,  with  a  great  company  of  young  lords  and  genlle- 
inen.  to  the  house  of  Sir  George  Barne,  Lord  Mayor,  where  he,  with  the  chief  of 
his  company,  dined,  and  after  had  a  great  banquet,  and  at  his  departure  the  Lord 
Maj'or  gave  him  a  standing  cup  with  a  cover  of  silver  and  gilt,  of  the  value  of  ten 
pound,  for  a  reward,  and  also  set  a  hogshead  of  wine  and  a  barrel  of  beer  at  his 
gate  for  his  train  that  followed  him.  The  residue  of  his  gentlemen  and  servants 
dined  at  other  aldermen's  houses  and  with  the  sheriffs,  and  so  dei)arted  to  the  Tower- 
wharf  again,  and  to  the  Court  by  water,  to  the  great  commendation  of  the  mayor 
ind  aldermen,  and  highly  accepted  of  the  king  and  council." 


THE  MIRROR   FOR   MAGISTRATES.  463 

a  subsequent  and  enlaroed  edition  of  it  in  1563,  "  was  begun  and 
part  of  it  printed  in  Queen  Mary's  time,  but  hindered  by  the  Lord 
Chancellor  that  then  was  ;  ^  nevertheless,  througli  the  means  of 
my  Lord  Statibrd,^  the  first  part  was  licensed,  and  imprinted  the 
first  year  of  the  reign  of  this  our  most  noble  and  virtuous  Queen, 
and  dedicated  then  to  your  honours  with  this  preface.  Since  which 
time,  althoiigh  I  have  been  called  to  another  trade  of  life,  yet  my 
good  Lord  Stafford  hath  not  ceased  to  call  upon  me  to  publish  so 
much  as  I  had  gotten  at  other  men's  hands  ;  so  that,  through  his 
lordship's  earnest  means,  I  have  now  set  furth  another  part,  con- 
taining as  little  of  mine  own  as  the  first  part  doth  of  other  men's." 
The  Mirror  for  Magistrates  immediately  acquired  and  for  a  consid- 
erable time  retained  great  popularity :  a  third  edition  of  it  was  pub- 
lished in  1571  ;  a  fourth,  with  the  addition  of  a  series  of  new  lives 
from  the  fabulous  history  of  the  early  Britons,  by  John  Higgins,  in 
1574 ;  a  fifth,  in  1587  ;  a  sixth,  with  further  additions,  in  1610,  by 
Richard  Nichols,  assisted  by  Thomas  Blenerhasset  (whose  contribu- 
tions, however,  had  been  separately  printed  in  1578).^  The  copi- 
ousness of  the  plan,  into  which  any  narrative  might  be  inserted 
belonging  to  either  the  historical  or  legendary  part  of  the  national 
annals,  and  that  without  any  trouble  in  the  way  of  connection  or 
adaptation,  had  made  the  work  a  receptacle  for  the  contributions 
of  all  the  ready  versifiers  of  the  day,  —  a  common,  or  parish  green, 
as  it  were,  on  which  a  fair  was  held  to  which  any  one  who  chose 
might  bring  his  wares,  —  or  rather  a  sort  of  continually  growing 
monument,  or  cairn,  to  which  every  man  added  his  stone,  or  little 
separate  specimen  of  brick  and  mortar,  who  conceived  himself  to 
have  any  skill  in  building  the  lofty  rhyme.  There  were  scarcely 
any  limits  to  the  size  to  which  the  book  might  have  grown,  except 
the  mutability  of  the  public  taste,  which  will  permit  no  one  thing, 
good  or  bad,  to  go  on  forever.  The  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  how- 
ever, for  all  its  many  authors,  is  of  note  in  the  history  of  our 
poetry  for  nothing  else  which  it  contains,  except  the  portions  con- 
tributed by  its  contriver  Sackville,  consisting  only  of  one  legend, 
that  of  Henry,  Duke  of  Buckingham  (Richard  the  Third's  famo\i3 

1  He  is  supposed  to  mean  Dr.  Heath,  Archbishop  of  Yorlc. 

'^  Henry  Lord  Stafford,  son  and  heir  of  P'dvvard,  last  (Stafford^  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham. Ho  had  been  allowed,  notwithstanding  his  father's  forfeiture,  to  sit  in  Parlia- 
ment as  Lord  Stafford  ;  and  lived  till  1562. 

^  A  reprint  of  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  in  2  (sometimes  divided  into  3)  vols 
ito.,  was  brought  out  by  the  late  Mr.  Hazlewood  in  1815. 


464  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

accomplice  and  victim,  and  grandfather  of  Lord  Stafford,  the  great 
patron  of  the  work),  and  the  introdnction,  or  Induction,  as  it  is 
called,  prefixed  to  that  narrative,  which  however  is  said  to  have 
been  originally  intended  to  stand  at  the  head  of  the  Avhole  work. 
The  Induction  begins  with  a  picture  of  winter,  which  is  drawn 
with  vivid  colors  and  a  powerful  ]iencil  ;  then  follow  some  brief 
reflections,  suggested  by  the  faded  fields  and  scattered  summer 
flowers,  on  the  instability  of  all  things  here  below  ;  but  suddenly 
the  poet  perceives  that  the  night  is  drawing  on  faster,  and  there- 
upon redoubles  his  pace  ;  when,  he  continues. 

In  black  all  clad  there  fell  before  my  face 
A  piteous  wight,  whom  woe  had  all  forwast ; 
Furth  from  her  eyen  the  crystal  tears  outbrast, 
And,  sighing  sore,  her  hands  she  wrong  and  fold, 
Tearing  her  hair  that  ruth  was  to  behold. 

Her  body  small,  fnrwithered  and  forspent, 
As  is  tlie  stalk  with  summer's  drought  opprest ; 
Her  wealked  face  with  woful  tears  besprent, 
Her  colour  pale,  and,  as  it  seemd  her  best. 
In  Avoe  and  plaint  reposed  was  her  rest ; 
And,  as  the  stone  that  drops  of  water  wears, 
So  dented  were  her  cheeks  with  fall  of  tears. 

I  stood  aghast,  beholding  all  her  plight, 
Tween  dread  and  dolour  so  distrained  in  heart, 
That,  while  my  knees  upstarted  with  the  sight. 
The  tears  outstreamed  for  sorrow  of  her  smart. 
But,  when  I  saw  no  end  that  could  apart 
The  deadly  dole  which  siie  so  sore  did  make, 
With  doleful  voice  then  thus  to  her  I  spake  : 

Unwrap  thy  woes,  whatever  wight  thou  be  ! 
And  stint  betime  to  spill  thyself  with  plaint : 
Tell  what  thou  art,  and  whence  ;  for  well  I  see 
Tiiou  can'st  not  dure,  with  sorrow  thus  attaint. 
And  with  that  word,  of  sorrow,  all  forfaint. 
She  looked  up,  and,  prostrate  as  she  lay, 
Witli  piteous  sound,  lo !  tints  slie  gan  to  say : 

Alas,  I  wretch,  whom  thus  thou  see'st  distrained, 
With  wasting  woes  that  never  shall  aslake, 
SouROW  I  am  ;  in  endless  torments  pained 


THE   MIRROR   FOR  MAGISTRATES.  465 

Among  the  Furies  in  the  infernal  lake  ; 
Where  Pluto,  God  of  Hell,  so  grisly  blake, 
Doth  hold  his  throne,  and  Lethe's  deadly  taste 
Doth  reave  remembrance  of  each  thing  forepast. 

Whence  come  I  am,  the  dreary  destiny 

And  luckless  lot  for  to  bemoan  of  those 

Whom  fortune  in  this  maze  of  misery 

Of  wretched  chance  most  woeful  mirrors  chose  ; 

That  when  thou  seest  how  lightly  they  did  lose 

Their  pomp,  their  power,  and  that  they  thought  most  sure, 

Thou  may'st  soon  deem  no  earthly  joy  may  dure. 

Son  CUV  conducts  the  poet  to  the  region  of  departed  spirits;  and 
then  follows  a  long  succession  of  allegoric  pictures  —  including 
Remorse,  Dread  (or  Fear),  Revenge,  Misery  (that  is.  Avarice), 
Care,  Sleep,  Old  Age,  Malady,  Famine,  Death,  War,  Debate  (or 
Strife),  &c.  ;  all  drawn  with  extraordinaiy  strength  of  imagination, 
and  "with  a  command  of  expressive,  picturesque,  and  melodious 
language,  nothing  equal  or  approaching  to  which  had  till  now  been 
seen  in  our  poetry,  except  only  hi  Chaucer,  —  and  he  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  have  written  in  the  same  English  the  capabilities  of 
which  were  thus  brought  out  by  Sackville.  Both  for  his  poetical 
genius,  and  in  the  history  of  the  language,  Sackville  and  his  two 
poems  in  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates  —  more  especially  this  Induc- 
tion —  must  be  considered  as  forming  the  connecting  link  or  bridge 
between  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  between  the  Canterbury  Tales  and 
the  Fairy  Queen. 

For  the  sake  of  affording  a  means  of  comparison  with  the  style 
and  manner  of  the  extracts  we  shall  presently  have  to  give  from  the 
latter  work,  w^e  will  add  hei-e  another  of  Sackville's  delineations:  — 

And  next  in  order  sad  Old  Age  we  found, 
His  beard  all  hoai',  his  eyes  hollow  and  blind. 
With  drooping  cheer  still  poring  on  the  ground, 
As  on  the  place  Avhere  nature  him  assigned 
To  rest,  when  that  the  Sisters  had  untwined 
His  vital  thread,  and  ended  with  their  knife 
The  fleeting  course  of  fast-declining  life. 

There  heard  we  him,  with  broke  and  hollow  plaint, 
Eue  with  himself  his  end  approaching  fost. 
And  all  for  nought  his  wretched  mind  torment 
VOL.  1,  59 


466  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

With  sweet  remembrance  of  his  pleasures  past, 
And  fresh  delights  of  lusty  youth  forwast ;  ^ 
Recounting  which  how  would  he  sob  and  shriek, 
And  to  be  young  again  of  Jove  beseek  ! 

But,  an  ^  the  cruel  fates  so  fixed  be 
That  time  forepast  cannot  return  again, 
This  one  request  of  Jove  yet  prayed  he  — 
That,  in  such  withered  plight  and  wretched  pain 
As  eld,  accompanied  with  her  loathsome  train, 
Had  brought  on  him,  all  were  it  woe  and  grief, 
He  might  awhile  yet  linger  forth  his  lief, 

And  not  so  soon  descend  into  the  pit, 

Where  Death,  when  he  the  mortal  corpse  hath  slain. 

With  reckless  hand  in  grave  doth  cover  it, 

Thereafter  never  to  enjoy  again 

The  gladsome  light,  but,  in  the  ground  ylain, 

Li  depth  of  darkness  waste  and  wear  to  nought, 

As  he  had  ne'er  into  the  world  been  brought. 

But  who  had  seen  him  sobbing  how  he  stood 

Unto  himself,  and  how  he  would  bemoan 

His  youth  forepast,  —  as  though  it  wrought  him  good 

To  talk  of  youth,  all  were  his  youth  foregone  — 

He  would  have  mused,  and  marvelled  much,  whereon 

This  wretched  Age  should  life  desire  so  fain. 

And  knows  full  well  life  doth  but  length  his  pain. 

Crook-backed  he  was,  tooth-shaken,  and  blear-eyed. 
Went  on  three  feet,  and  sometime  crept  on  four ; 
With  old  lame  bones,  that  rattled  by  his  side  ; 
His  scalp  all  piled,^  and  he  with  eld  forelore  ; 
His  withered  fist  still  knocking  at  death's  door ; 
Fumbling  and  drivelling  as  he  draws  his  breath  ; 
For  brief,  the  shape  and  messenger  of  Death. 

Nothing  is  wanting  to  Sackville  that  belongs  to  force  either  of 
conception  or  of  expression.  In  his  own  world  of  the  sombre  and 
sad,  also,  he  is  almost  as  great  an  inventor  as  he  is  a  colorist ;  and 
Spenser  has  been  indebted  to  him  for  many  hints,  as  well  as  for 
exami)le  and  inspiration  in  a  general  sense  :  what  most  marks  the 
immaturiTy  of  his  style  is  a  certain  operose  and  constrained  air,  a 
*  Utterly'  wastod  and  gone  "^  If.  "*  Peeled,  bare,  bal/i. 


'  ORIGIN   OF   THE   REGULAR  DRAMA.  467 

stiffiiess  and  hardness  of  manner,  like  what  we  find  in  the  works 
of  the  earliest  school  of  the  Italian  painters,  before  Raphael  and 
Michael  Angelo  arose  to  convert  the  art  from  a  painful  repetition 
or  mimicry  of  reality  into  a  process  of  creation  —  from  the  timid 
slave  of  nature  into  her  glorified  rival.  Of  the  flow  and  variety 
the  genuine  spirit  of  light  and  life,  that  we  have  in  Spenser  and 
Shakspeare,  there  is  little  in  Sackville  ;  his  poetry  —  ponderous, 
gloomy,  and  monotonous  —  is  still  oppressed  by  the  shadows  of 
night ;  and  we  see  that,  although  the  darkness  is  retiring,  the  sun 
has  not  yet  risen. 


ORIGIN   OF   THE   REGULAR  DRAMA. 

From  the  first  introduction  of  dramatic  representations  in  Eng 
land,  probably  as  early,  at  least,  as  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth 
century,  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth,  or  perhaps  some- 
what later,  the  only  species  of  drama  known  was  that  styled  the 
Miracle,  or  Miracle-play.  The  subjects  of  the  miracle-plays  were 
all  taken  from  the  histories  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  or 
from  the  legends  of  saints  and  martyrs  ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  probable 
that  their  original  design  was  chiefly  to  instruct  the  people  in  relig- 
ious knowledge.  They  were  often  acted  as  well  as  written  by 
clergymen,  and  were  exhibited  in  abbeys,  in  churches,  and  in 
churchyards,  on  Sundays  or  other  holidays.  It  appears  to  have 
been  not  till  some  time  after  their  first  introduction  that  miracle- 
plays  came  to  be  annually  represented  under  the  direction  and  at 
the  expense  of  the  guilds  or  trading  companies  of  towns,  as  at 
Chester  and  elsewhere.  The  characters,  or  dramatis  personce,  of 
the  miracle-plays,  though  sometimes  svipernatural  or  legendary, 
were  always  actual  personages,  historical  or  imaginary ;  and  in 
that  respect  these  primitive  plays  approached  nearer  to  the  regular 
drama  than  those  by  which  they  were  succeeded,  —  the  Morals,  or 
Moral-j)lays,  in  which,  not  a  history,  but  an  apologue  was  repre- 
sented, and  in  which  the  characters  were  all  allegorical.  The 
moral-plays  are  traced  back  to  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
VI.,  and  they  appear  to  have  gradually  arisen  out  of  the  miracle- 
plays,  in  which,  of  course,  characters  very  nearly  approaching  in 
'heir   nature   to   the  impersonated   vices  and   virtues   of  the  new 


468  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

species  of  drama  must  have  occasionally  appeared.  The  Devil  of 
tiie  Miracles,  for  example,  would  very  naturally  suggest  the  Vice 
of  the  Morals  ;  which  latter,  however,  it  is  to  be  observed,  also 
retained  the  Devil  of  their  predecessors,  who  was  too  amusing  and 
popular  a  character  to  be  discarded.  Nor  did  the  moral-plays  alto- 
gether put  down  the  miracle-plays  :  in  many  of  the  provincial 
towns,  at  least,  the  latter  continued  to  be  represented  almost  to  as 
late  a  date  as  the  former.  Finally,  by  a  process  of  natural  transi- 
tion very  similar  to  that  by  which  the  sacred  and  supernatural  char- 
acters of  the  religious  drama  had  been  converted  into  the  allegorical 
personifications  of  the  moral-plays,  these  last,  gradually  becoming 
less  and  less  vague  and  shadowy,  at  length,  about  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  boldly  assumed  life  and  reality,  giving  birth 
to  the  first  examples  of  regular  tragedy  and  comedy. 

Both  moral-plays,  however,  and  even  the  more  ancient  miracle 
plays,  continued  to  be  occasionally  performed  down  to  the  verj' 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  One  of  the  last  dramatic  represen- 
tations at  which  Elizabeth  was  present  was  a  moral-play,  entitled 
The  Contention  between  Liberality  and  Prodigality,  which  was 
performed  before  her  majesty  in  1600,  or  1601.  This  production 
was  printed  in  1602,  and  was  probably  w^ritten  not  long  before 
that  time :  it  has  been  said  to  have  been  the  joint  production  of 
Thomas  Lodge  and  Robert  Greene,^  the  last  of  whom  died  in 
1592.  The  only  three  manuscripts  of  the  Chester  miracle-plays 
now  extant  were  written  in  1600,  1604,  and  1607,  most  probably 
while  the  plays  still  continued  to  be  acted.  There  is  evidence 
that  the  ancient  annual  miracle-plays  were  acted  at  Tewkesbury 
at  least  till  1585,  at  Coventry  till  1591,  at  Newcastle  till  1598, 
and  at  Kendal  down  even  to  the  year  1603.^ 

1  By  Edward  Phillips,  in  his  Thcatrum  Poetarum,  1675. 

2  The  Townelcy  Mysteries  (so  called  after  the  MS.  containing  them,  formerly 
belonging  to  Mr.  P.  Towneley),  which  are  snpposed  to  have  heen  acted  at  Widkirk 
Abbey  in  Yorkshire,  have  been  printed  for  the  Surtees  Society,  under  the  care  of 
the  Rev.  Joseph  Hiniter  and  J.  Stevenson,  Esq.,  8vo.  Newcastle,  1831  ;  the  Coventry 
Mysteries,  under  the  care  of  J.  O.  Halliwell,  Esq.,  for  the  Shakespeare  Society, 
Bvo.  Lond.  1841 ;  and  the  Chester  Mysteries,  for  the  same  society,  under  the  care 
of  Thomas  Wright,  Esq.,  vol.  i.  Bvo.  Lond.  1843,  and  vol.  ii.  1847.  See  also  Mr. 
Wright's  Early  Mysteries,  and  other  Latin  Poems  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteentli 
centuries,  8vo.  Lond.  1838.  Mr.  (Oilier,  in  a  note  to  his  Hist,  of  Eng.  Dram.  Poe- 
try, ii.  123,  124,  observes,  that,  although  miracle-plays  were  at  a  very  early  date 
called  Mysteries  in  France,  and  the  term  has  been  adopted  by  Warton,  Percy, 
Hawkins,  Malone,  and  other  modern  writers  among  ourselves,  it  was,  he  appr& 


INTERLUDES   OF  JOHN   HEYWOOD.  46& 

As  has  been  observed,  however,  by  Mr.  Collier,  the  latest  and 
best  historian  of  the  English  drama,  the  moral-plays  were  enabled 
to  keep  possession  of  the  stage  so  long  as  they  did,  partly  by  means 
of  the  approaches  they  had  for  some  time  been  making  to  a  more 
improved  species  of  composition,  "  and  partly  because,  under  the 
form  of  allegorical  fiction  and  abstract  character,  the  writers  intro- 
duced matter  which  covertly  touched  upon  public  events,  popular 
prejudices,  and  temporary  opinions."  ^  He  mentions,  in  particular 
the  moral  entitled  Tlie  Three  Ladies  of  London,  printed  in  1584, 
and  its  continuation,  The  Three  Lords  and  Three  Ladies  of  Lon- 
don, which  appeared  in  1590  (both  by  R.  W.),  as  belonging  to  this 
class. 


INTERLUDES    OF  JOHN   HEYWOOD. 

Meanwhile,  long  before  the  earliest  of  these  dates,  the  ancient 
drama  had,  in  other  hands,  assumed  wholly  a  new  form.  Mr.  Col- 
lier appears  to  consider  the  Interludes  of  John  Heywood,  the 
earliest  of  which  must  have  been  written  before  1521,  as  first 
exhibiting  the  moral-play  in  a  state  of  transition  to  the  regular 
tragedy  and  comedy.  "  John  Heywood's  dramatic  productions," 
he  says,  "  almost  form  a  class  by  themselves :  they  are  neither 
miracle-plays  nor  moral-plays,  but  what  may  be  properly  and 
strictly  called  interludes,  a  species  of  writing  of  which  he  has  a 
claim  to  be  considered  the  inventor,  although  the  term  interlude 
■was  applied  generally  to  theatrical  productions   in  the   reign   of 

hends,  unknown  in  England  in  that  or  any  similar  sense  till  comparatively  a  recent 
period.  According  to  Mr.  Wright  (Chester  Plays,  Introduction,  pp.  vii.  viii.), 
while  dramatic  performances  representing  the  legendary  miracles  attributed  to  the 
saints  were  properly  called  Miracula,  Miracles,  or  Miracle-plays,  those  which  were 
founded  on  Scripture  subjects,  and  which  were  intended  to  set  forth  the  mysteries 
of  revelation,  were  distinguished  by  the  title  of  Hysteria,  or  Mysteries.  "  In 
France,"  he  adds,  "  the  distinction  between  Miracles  and  Mysteries  was  carefully 
preserved  to  the  latest  times.  In  England,  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century, 
there  appears  to  have  been  some  confusion  in  the  application  of  these  terms,  and 
the  name  of  Miracles  was  given  frequently  to  all  kinds  of  Scripture  plays  as  well 
as  to  plays  of  saints'  miracles."  This  account  would  seem  to  refute  the  conjecture 
which  has  been  hazarded,  that  Mysteries  meant  properly  dramatic  representations 
3y  the  trades  of  a  town,  and  that  the  word  was  not  myslerium,  but  niinisterium,  tlie 
jriginal  of  the  Italian  mestiere  and  the  French  metier,  anciently  mestier. 
^  Hist,  of  Dramatic  Poetry,  ii.  413. 


470  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Edward  IV."  A  notion  of  the  nature  of  these  coraposltions  may 
be  collected  fi-om  the  plot  of  one  of  them,  A  Merry  Play  betwene 
the  Pardoner  and  the  Frere,  the  Curate  and  neighbour  Pratte, 
printed  in  1533,  of  which  Mr.  Collier  gives  the  following  account : 
"  A  pardoner  and  a  friar  have  each  obtained  leave  of  the  curate 
to  use  his  church, — the  one  for  the  exhibition  of  his  relics,  and 
the  other  for  the  delivery  of  a  sermon,  —  the  object  of  both  being 
the  same,  that  of  procuring  money.  The  friar  arrives  first,  and  is 
about  to  commence  his  discourse,  when  the  pardoner  enters  and 
disturbs  him ;  each  is  desirous  of  being  heard,  and,  after  many 
vain  attempts  by  force  of  lungs,  they  proceed  to  force  of  arms, 
kicking  and  cuffing  each  other  unmercifully.  The  cm^ate,  called 
by  the  disturbance  in  his  church,  endeavors,  without  avail,  to  "part 
the  combatants  ;  he  therefore  calls  in  neighbor  Pratte  to  his  assist- 
ance, and,  Avhile  the  curate  seizes  the  friar,  Pi'atte  undertakes  to 
deal  with  the  pardoner,  in  order  that  they  may  set  them  in  the 
stocks.  It  turns  out  that  both  the  friar  and  the  pardoner  are  too 
much  for  their  assailants  ;  and  the  latter,  after  a  sound  drubbing, 
are  glad  to  come  to  a  composition,  by  which  the  former  are  allow^ed 
quietly  to  depart."  ^  Here,  then,  we  have  a  dramatic  fable,  or 
incident  at  least,  conducted  not  by  allegorical  personifications,  but 
by  characters  of  real  life,  which  is  the  essential  difference  that  dis- 
tinguishes the  true  tragedy  or  comedy  from  the  mere  moral.  Hey- 
wood's  interludes,  however,  of  which  there  are  two  or  three  more 
of  tlie  same  description  with  this  (besides  others  partaking  more 
of  the  allegorical  character),  are  all  only  single  acts,  or,  more 
properly,  scenes,  and  exhibit,  therefore,  nothiiig  more  than  the 
mere  rudiments  or  embryo  of  the  regular  comedy. 


UDALL'S   RALPH   ROISTER  DOISTER. 

The  earliest  English  comedy,  properly  so  called,  that  has  yet 
heen  discovered,  is  commonly  considered  to  be  that  of  Ralph  Rois- 
ter Doister,  the  production  of  Nicholas  Udall,  an  eminent  classical 
scholar  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  one  of  the 
masters,  first  at  Eton,  and  afterwards  at  Westminster.    Its  existence 

1  Hist,  of  Dramatic  Poetry,  ii.  886. 


UDALL'S   RALPH   ROISTER   DOISTER.  471 

was  unknown  till  a  copy  was  discovered  in  1818,  which  pei-hap« 
(for  the  title-page  is  gone)  was  not  printed  earlier  than  1566,  in 
which  year  Thouias  Haekett  is  recorded  in  the  register  of  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company  to  have  had  a  license  for  printing  a  play  entitled 
Rauf  Ruyster  Duster ;  but  the  play  is  quoted  in  Thomas  Wilson's 
Rule  of  Reason,  first  printed  in  1551,  so  that  it  must  have  been 
written  at  least  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  before.^  This  hypothesis 
would  carry  it  back  to  about  the  same  date  with  the  earliest  of 
Heywood's  interludes ;  and  it  certainly  was  produced  while  that 
writer  was  still  alive  and  in  the  height  of  his  popularity.  It  may 
be  observed  that  Wilson  calls  Udall's  play  an  interlude,  which 
would  therefore  seem  to  have  been  at  this  time  the  common  name 
for  any  dramatic  composition,  as,  indeed,  it  appears  to  have  been 
for  nearly  a  century  preceding.  The  author  himself,  however,  in 
his  prologue,  announces  it  as  a  Comedy,  or  Interlude,  and  as  an 
imitation  of  the  classical  models  of  Plautus  and  Terence. 

And,  in  truth,  both  in  character  and  in  plot,  Ralph  Roister 
Doister  has  every  right  to  be  regarded  as  a  true  comedy,  showing 
indeed,  in  its  execution,  the  rudeness  of  the  age,  but  in  its  plan, 
and  in  reference  to  the  principle  upon  which  it  is  constructed,  as 
regular  and  as  complete  as  any  comedy  in  the  language.  It  is 
divided  into  acts  and  scenes,  which  very  few  of  the  moi'al-plays 
are ;  and,  according  to  Mr.  Colher's  estimate,  the  performance 
could  not  have  been  concluded  in  less  time  than  about  two  hours 
and  a  half,  while  few  of  the  morals  would  require  more  than  about 
an  hour  for  their  representation.^  The  dramatis  personce  are  thir- 
teen in  all,  nine  male  and  four  female  ;  and  the  two  principal  ones 
at  least  —  Ralph  himself,  a  vain,  thoughtless,  blustering  fellow, 
whose  ultimately  baffled  pursuit  of  the  gay  and  rich  widow  Cus- 
tance  forms  the  action  of  the  piece  ;  and  his  servant,  Matthew 
Merrygreek,  a  kind  of  flesh-and-blood  representative  of  the  Vice 
of  the  old  moral-plays  —  are  strongly  discriminated,  and  drawn 
altogether  with  much  force  and  spirit.  The  story  is  not  very 
ingeniously  involved,  but  it  moves  forward  through  its  gi-adual 
development,  and  onwards  to  the  catastrophe,  in  a  sufficiently  bus- 
tling, lively  manner ;  and  some  of  the  situations,  though  the  humor 
is  rather  farcical  than  comic,  are  very  cleverly  conceived  and 
managed.  The  language  also  may  be  said  to  be  on  the  whole  racy 
and  chai'acteristic,  if  not  very  polished.  A  few  lines  from  a  speech 
1  See  Collier,  ii.  446.  -  Ibid.  45. 


472  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  one  of  the  Avidow's  handmaidens,  Tibet  Talkapace,  in  a  conver- 
sation with  her  fellow-servants  on  the  approaching  marriage  of  their 
masters,  may  be  quoted  as  a  specimen :  — 

And  I  heard  our  Nourse  speake  of  an  husbande  to-day 

Ready  for  our  mistresse ;  a  rich  man  and  a  gay  : 

And  we  shall  go  in  our  French  hoodes  eveiy  day ; 

In  our  silke  cassocks  (I  warrant  you)  freshe  and  gay ; 

In  our  tricke  ferdigews,  and  billiments  of  golde, 

Brave  in  our  sutes  of  chaunge,  seven  double  folde. 

Then  shall  ye  see  Tibet,  sires,  treade  the  mosse  so  trimme ; 

Nay,  why  said  I  treade  ?  ye  shall  see  hir  glide  and  swimme, 

Not  lumperdee,  clumperdee,  like  our  spaniell  Rig.^ 

1  Udall  (the  name  is  otherwise  written  Uvedale,  Owdall,  Dowdall,  Woodall,  ani3 
Woddell)  died  in  1566.  He  was  a  zealous  Lutheran,  and  one  of  the  most  active 
writers  for  the  press  in  his  day.  We  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice  the  trans- 
lation brought  out  in  1548  under  his  care  of  Erasmus's  Paraplirase  of  the  New 
Testament.  As  an  Eton  master  he  appears  to  have  been  noted  for  his  severity ;  but 
the  most  remarkable  fact  belonging  to  this  part  of  liis  history  is,  that  in  1542  he  was 
dismissed  on  the  charge  of  having  been  concerned  in  a  robbery,  and  that  in  a  letter 
in  his  own  handwriting  still  preserved  among  the  Cotton  MSS.  he  seems,  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  at  least,  to  admit  his  guilt.  At  this  time,  too,  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  he  held  a  Hving  in  the  church.  The  probability  is  that  the  robbery, 
described  as  being  of  certain  images  of  silver  and  other  plate  belonging  to  the  col 
lege,  may  have  been  prompted  by  some  impulse  of  anti-Romanist  zeal.  On  the 
establishment,  at  any  rate,  of  the  reformed  system  under  Edward,  Udall  was  made 
first  a  prebend  of  Windsor  and  soon  after  was  presented  to  the  rectory  of  Calborne 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight;  and  at  last  he  was  appointed  to  the  head-mastership  of  West- 
minster School,  from  which,  however,  and  probably  also  from  his  ecclesiastical  pre- 
ferments, he  was  again  ejected  under  Mary,  soon  after  the  middle  of  whose  reign 
he  died.  Upon  tlie  discovery  of  the  printed  copy  of  Ralph  Roister  Doister  in  1818 
by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Briggs,  that  gentleman  had  a  limited  reprint  made  of  it,  and  then 
presented  the  original  copy  to  the  library  of  Eton  College,  where  he  had  been  edu- 
cated. He  did  not  then  know  that  the  author  had  been  one  of  the  masters  there, 
nor  who  the  author  was;  nor  did  Dr.  Bliss,  wlien  he  soon  after  inserted  in  his  new 
edition  of  Wood's  Athenae  Oxonienses  the  quotation  from  the  play  given  by  Wil- 
son, know  that  ifwas  trom  Ralph  Roister  Doister.  Another  edition,  with  notes, 
was  produced  in  1821  by  Mr.  F.  Marshall ;  and  a  third  reprint  by  Mr.  Thomas 
White,  in  his  Old  English  Drama,  in  1830.  But  the  standard  copy  is  now  that 
edited  for  the  Shakespeare  Society  in  1847  by  Mr.  William  Durrant  Cooper,  with  an 
elaborate  Life  of  Udall  prefixed,  and  occasional  notes,  in  which  Mr.  Cooper  states 
that  he  has  largely  availed  himself  of  those  accompanying  the  reprint  of  1821. 
Accordi.->«;  to  "ir.  Cooper,  the  authorship  of  Ralph  Roister  Doister  was  first  estab- 
i8h»H»  L^  \         'u.er,  in  his  History  of  English  Dramatic  Poetry  (1831),  vol.  U 


GAMMER  GURTON'S  NEEDLE. 

Ralph  Roister  Doister  is  in  every  way  a  very  superior  pro- 
duction to  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  which,  before  the  disco s^ery 
of  Udall's  piece,  had  the  credit  of  being  the  first  regular  English 
comedy.     At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  superior 
antiquity  assigned  to  Ralph  Roister  Doister  is  not  very  conclusively 
made  out.     All  that  we  know  with  certainty  with  regard  to  the 
date  of  the  play  is,  that  it  was  in  existence  in  1551.     The  oldest 
edition  of  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  is  dated  1575 ;   but  how  long 
the  play  may  have  been  composed  before  that  year  is  uncertain. 
The  title-page  of  the  1575  edition  describes  it  as  "  played  on  the 
stacre  not  loner  ao-o  in  Christ's  Colleo-e,  in  Cambridge  ;  "    and  War- 
ton,  on  the  authority  of  a  manuscript  memorandum  by  Oldys,  the 
eminent  antiquary  of  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  says  that 
it  was  written  and  first  printed  in  1551.^     Wright  also,  in  his  His- 
toria  Histrionica,  first  printed  in  1669,  states  it  as  his  opinion  that 
it  was  written  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.     In  refutation  of  all 
this  it  is  alleged  that  "  it  could  not  have   been  produced  so  early, 
because  John  Still  (afterwards  bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells),  the 
author  of  it,  was  not  born  until  1543  ;  and,  consequently,  in  1552, 
taking  War-ton's  latest  date,  would  only  have  been  nine  years  old.^ 
But  the  evidence  that  bishop  Still  was  the  author  of  Gannner  Gur- 
ton's Needle  is  exceedingly  slight.    The  play  is  merely  stated  on  the 
title-page  to  have  been  "made  by  Mr.  S.,  Master  of  Arts  ;  "   and 
even  if  there  was,   as  is  asserted,  no  other  Master  of  Arts  of 
Christ's  College  whose  name  began  with  S  at  the  time  when  this 
title-page  was  printed,  the  author  of  the  play  is  not  stated  to  have 
Deen  of  that  college,  nor,  if  he  were,  is  it  necessary  to  assume  that 
he  was  living  in  1575.     On  the  whole,  therefore,  while  there  is  no 
proof  that  Ralph  Roister  Doister  is  older  than  the  year  1551,  it  is 

1  History  of  English  Poetry,  iv.  32.  He  adds,  that  it  was  "  soon  afterwards  acted 
at  Christ's  College  in  Cambridge."  And  elsewhere  (iii.  205)  he  says,  that  it  Was 
acted  in  that  society  about  the  year  1552.  We  do  not  understand  how  Mr.  Collier 
(ii.  444)  collects  from  a  comparison  of  these  two  passages  that  "  Warton  states  in 
one  place  that  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  was  printed  in  1551,  and  in  another  that  it 
was  not  written  till  1552."  Mr.  Collier,  it  may  be  perceived,  is  also  mistaken  in 
ddding,  that  Warton  seems  to  have  had  no  other  evidence  for  these  assertions  tlian 
the  opinion  of  Wright,  the  author  of  the  Historia  Histrionica. 

2  Collier,  ii.  444. 

VOL.    I.  60 


474  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

by  no  means  certain  that  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  was  not  written 
in  that  same  year. 

This  "  right  pithy,  pleasant,  and  merie  comedie,"  as  it  is  desig- 
nated on  the  title-page,  is,  like  Udall's  play,  regularly  divided  into 
acts  and  scenes,  and,  like  it  too,  is  written  in  rhyme,  —  the  lan- 
guage and  versification  being,  on  the  whole,  perhaps  rather  more 
easy  tlian  flowing,  —  a  circumstance  whicli,  more  than  any  external 
evidence  that  has  been  produced,  would  incline  us  to  assign  it  to 
a  somewhat  later  date.  But  it  is  in  all  respects  a  very  tame  and 
poor  performance,  —  the  plot,  if  so  it  can  be  called,  meagre  to 
insipidity  and  silliness,  the  characters  only  a  few  slightly  distin- 
guished varieties  of  the  lowest  life,  and  the  dialogue  in  general  as 
feeble  and  undramatic  as  the  merest  monotony  can  make  it:  Its 
merriment  is  of  the  coarsest  and  most  boisterous  description,  even 
where  it  is  not  otherwise  offensive  ;  but  the  principal  ornament 
wlierewith  the  author  endeavors  to  enliven  his  style  is  a  brutal 
filth  and  grossness  of  expression,  which  is  the  more  astounding 
when  we  consider  that  the  piece  was  the  production,  in  all  proba- 
bility, of  a  clergyman  at  least,  if  not  of  one  who  afterwards 
became  a  bishop,  and  that  it  was  certainly  represented  before  a 
learned  and  grave  university.  There  is  nothing  of  the  same  high 
seasoning  in  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  though  tliat  play  seems  to  have 
been  intended  only  for  the  amusement  of  a  common  London  audi- 
ence. The  Second  Act  of  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  is  introduced 
by  a  song, 

I  cannot  eat  but  little  meat, 
My  stomach  is  not  good,  &c. 

which  is  the  best  thing  in  the  whole  play,  and  which  is  well  known 
from  having  been  quoted  by  Warton,  who  describes  it  as  the  earh- 
est  chanson  a  boirc,  or  drinking-ballad,  of  any  merit  in  the  language  ; 
and  observes  tliat  "  it  has  a  vein  of  ease  and  humor  wliich  we 
should  not  ex])ect  to  have  been  mspired  by  the  simple  beverage  of 
those  times."  But  this  song  is  most  probably  not  by  the  author  of 
the  play  :  it  ap])ears  to  be  merely  a  portion  of  a  jjopular  song  of 
the  time,  whicli  is  found  elsewhere  complete,  and  has  recently  been 
so  printed,  from  a  MS.  of  the  sixteenth  century,  by  Dr.  Dyce,  in  his 
edition  of  Skelton.'     We  will  give,  as  a  specimen  of  the  language 

1  See  Account  of  Skolton  and  liis  Writings,  vol.  i.  pp.  7-9.  Mr.  Dyce  states 
tiiat  tlie  MS.  from  which  lie  has  printed  the  song  is  certainly  of  an  earlier  date  tlaan 
thf  oldest  known  edition  of  the  play  (1575). 


MISOGONUS.  475 

:>t'  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  the  introductoiy  speech  to  the  fii'sl 
Act,  which  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  character  called  Diccou  the 
Bedlam,  that  is,  one  of  those  mendicants  who  affected  a  sort  of  half- 
uiadness,  and  were  known  by  the  name  of  Bedlam  Beggars  :  ^  — 

Many  a  myle  have  I  walked,  divers  and  sundry  waies, 

And  many  a  good  man's  house  have  I  bin  at  in  my  dais : 

Many  a  gossip's  cup  in  my  tyrae  have  I  tasted, 

And  many  a  broche  and  spyt  have  I  both  turned  and  basted  i 

Many  a  peece  of  bacon  have  I  had  out  of  thir  balkes, 

In  ronnyng  over  the  countrey  Avith  long  and  were  walkes  ; 

Yet  came  my  foote  never  within  those  doore  cheekes, 

To  seek  flesh  or  fysh,  garlyke,  onyons,  or  leekess, 

That  ever  I  saw  a  sorte  in  such  a  plyght, 

As  here  within  this  house  appeareth  to  my  syght. 

There  is  howlynge  and  schowlyng,  all  cast  in  a  dumpe, 

With  whewling  and  pewling,  as  though  they  had  lost  a  trump: 

Syghing  and  sobbing,  they  weepe  and  they  wayle  ; 

I  marvel  in  my  mynd  what  the  devil  they  ayle. 

The  olde  trot  syts  groning,  with  alas  and  alas, 

And  Tib  wringes  her  hands,  and  takes  on  in  worse  case  ; 

With  poore  Cocke,  theyr  boye,  they  be  dryven  in  such  fyts 

I  fear  mee  the  folkes  be  not  well  in  theyr  wyts. 

Askc  them  what  tliey  ayle,  or  who  brought  them  in  this  staye? 

Tliey  aunswer  not  at  all,  but  alacke  and  welaway  ! 

When  I  saw  it  booted  not,  out  at  doores  I  hyed  mee, 

And  caught  a  slyp  of  bacon,  when  I  saw  none  spyed  mee, 

Wliich  I  intend  not  far  hence,  unles  my  purpose  fayle, 

Shall  serve  for  a  shoing  home  to  draw  on  two  pots  of  ale 


MISOGONUS. 

Probably  of  earlier  date  than  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  is 
another  example  of  tlie  regular  drama,  which,  like  Ralph  Roister 

1  Diccon  is  the  ancient  abbreviation  of  Richard.  It  may  be  noticed  that  there  is 
an  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Books  of  a  play  entitled  Diccon  of  Bedlam,  under  the 
year  1563  (see  Extracts  from  the  Registers  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  edited  by 
Mr.  Collier  for  the  Shakespeare  Society,  1848,  vol.  i.  p.  69),  which  is  in  all  proba- 
Dility  the  same  piece  we  are  now  considering.  If  so,  this  fact  affords  an  additional 
presumption  that  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  was  printed,  or  at  least  written,  some 
years  before  the  date  of  the  earliest  edition  of  it  now  eyt'ant. 


i76  ENGLTSri   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Doister,  has  been  but  lately  recovered,  a  play  entitled  Misogonus, 
the  only  copy  of  which  is  in  manuscript,  and  is  dated  1577.  An 
allusion,  however,  in  the  course  of  the  dialogue,  would  seem  to 
prove  that  the  play  must  have  been  composed  about  the  year 
1560.  To  the  prologue  is  appended  the  name  of  Thomas  Rych- 
ardes,  who  has  therefore  been  assumed  to  be  the  author.  The 
play,  as  contained  in  the  manuscript,  consists  only  of  the  unusual 
number  of  four  acts,  but  the  story,  nevertheless,  appears  to  be 
completed.  For  a  further  account  of  Misogonus  we  must  refer  the 
reader  to  Mr.  Collier's  very  elaborate  analysis  ;  ^  only  remarking 
that  the  piece  is  written  throughout  in  rhyming  quatrains,  not 
couplets,  and  that  the  language  would  indicate  it  to  be  of  about 
the  same  date  with  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle.  It  contains  a  song, 
which  for  fluency  and  spirit  may  very  well  bear  to  be  compared 
with  the  drinking-soncr  in  that  drama.  Neither  in  the  contrivance 
and  conduct  of  the  plot,  however,  nor  in  the  force  with  which  the 
characters  are  exhibited,  does  it  evince  the  same  free  and  skilful 
hand  with  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  although  it  is  interesting  for 
some  of  the  illustrations  which  it  affords  of  the  manners  of  the  time. 
One  of  the  dramatis  i^^^'sonoi^  in  particular,  who  is  seldom  absent 
from  the  stage,  Cacurgus,  the  buffoon  or  fool  kept  by  the  family 
whose  fortunes  form  the  subject  of  the  piece,  must,  as  Mr.  Collier 
remarks,  "have  been  a  very  amusing  character  in  his  double  ca- 
pacity of  I'ustic  simpleton  and  artful  mischief-maker."  "  There  are 
few  pieces,"  Mr.  Collier  adds,  "  in  the  whole  range  of  our  ancient 
drama  which  display  the  important  character  of  the  domestic  fool 
in  anything  like  so  full  and  clear  a  light." 


CHRONICLE   HISTORIES.  — BALE'S   KYNGE  JOHAN,   etc. 

If  the  regular  drama  thus  made  its  first  appearance  among  us 
in  the  form  of  comedy,  the  tragic  miise  was  at  least  not  far  behind. 
There  is  some  ground  for  supposing,  indeed,  that  one  species  of  the 
graver  drama  of  real  life  may  have  begun  to  emerge  rather  sooner 
than  comedy  out  of  the  shadowy  world  of  the  old  allegorical  repre 
»entations  ;  that,  namely,  which  was  long  distinguished  from  both 
1  Hist.  Dram.  Poet.,  ii.  463-481. 


TRAGEDY    OF   GOllBODUC.  47'i 

comedy  and  tragedy  by  the  name  of  History,  or  Chronicle  History, 
consisting,  to  adopt  Mr.  Colher's  definition,  "  of  certain  passages  or 
events  detailed  by  annalists  put  into  a  dramatic  form,  often  with- 
out regard  to  the  course  in  which  they  happened  ;  the  author 
sacrificing  chronology,  situation,  and  circumstance,  to  the  supei'ior 
object  of  producing  an  attractive  play."  ^  Of  what  may  be  called 
at  least  the  transition  from  the  moral-play  to  the  history,  we  have 
an  example  in  Bale's  lately  recovered  drama  of  Kynge  Johan,^ 
written  in  all  probability  some  years  before  the  middle  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  in  which,  while  many  of  the  characters  are  still 
allegorical  abstractions,  others  are  real  persoiiages  ;  King  John 
himself.  Pope  Innocent,  Cardinal  Pandulphus,  Stephen  Langton, 
and  other  historical  figures,  moving  about  in  odd  intermixture  with 
such  mere  notional  spectres  as  the  Widowed  Britannia,  Imperial 
Majesty,  Nobility,  Clergy,  Civil  Order,  Treason,  Verity,  and  Sedi- 
tion. Tlie  play  is  accordingly  described  by  Mr.  Collier,  the  editor, 
as  occupying  an  intermediate  place  between  moralities  and  histori- 
cal plays  ;  and  "  it  is,"  he  adds,  "  the  only  known  existing  speci- 
men of  that  species  of  composition  of  so  early  a  date."  The  othei 
productions  that  are  extant  of  the  same  mixed  character  are  all  of 
tlie  latter  half  of  the  century ;  such  as  that  entitled  Tom  Tiler  and 
his  Wife,  supposed  to  have  been  first  printed  about  1578,  although 
the  oldest  known  edition  is  a  reprint  dated  1661 ;  The  Conflict  of 
Conscience  (called  a  comedy),  by  Nathaniel  Woods,  minister  of 
Norwich,  1581  ;  &c.^ 


TRAGEDY  OF  GORBODUC.  —  BLANK  VERSE. 

But  the  era  of  genuine  tragedies  and  historical  plays  had  already 
tommenced  some  years  before  these  last-mentioned  pieces  saw  the 

1  Hist.  Dram.  Poet.,  ii.  p.  414. 

2  Published  by  the  Camden  Society,  4to.  1838,  under  the  care  of  Mr.  Collier. 

3  See  an  account  of  these  and  other  pieces  of  the  same  kind  in  Collier,  Hist. 
Dram.  Poet,  ii.  353,  &c.  In  assigning  the  first  publication  of  Tom  Tiler  and  his 
Wife  to  the  year  1578,  Mr.  Collier  professes  to  follow  Ritson  (Ancient  Songs,  ii. 
31,  edit.  1829),  who,  he  observes,  was  no  doubt  as  correct  as  usual.  But,  whatever 
may  have  been  Ritson's  correctness  in  matters  of  mere  transcription,  it  is  proper  to 
note  that  in  the  present  case  he  mer-.^y  offers  a  conjecture  ;  so  that  we  are  left  to 
;lepend,  not  upon  his  correctness,  but  upon  his  sagacity.  The  dependence  to  be 
placed  upon  that  is  certainly  not  great. 


478  ENGLISH    LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

light.  Oil  the  18tli  of  January,  1562,  was  "  shown  before  the 
Queen's  most  excellent  Majesty,"  as  the  old  title-pages  of  the 
printed  play  inform  us,  "  in  her  Highness'  Coiirt  of  Whitehall,  by 
the  Gentlemen  of  the  Iimer  Temple,"  the  Tragedy  of  Gorboduc, 
otherwise  entitled  the  Tragedy  of  Ferrex  and  Porrex,  the  produc- 
tion of  the  same  Thomas  Sackville  who  has  already  engaged  our 
attention  as  by  far  the  most  remarkable  writer  in  The  Mirror  for 
Magistrates,  and  of  Thomas  Norton,  who  is  said  to  have  been  a 
puritan  clergyman,  and  who  had  already  acquired  a  poetic  reputa- 
tion, though  in  a  different  province  of  the  land  of  song,  as  one  of 
the  coadjutors  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins  in  their  metrical  version 
of  the  Psalms.  On  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition,  printed  in 
1565,  which,  however,  was  surreptitious,  it  is  stated  that  the  three 
first  acts  were  written  by  Norton,  and  the  two  last  by  Sackville  ; 
and,  although  this  announcement  was  afterwards  withdrawn,  it 
was  never  expressly  contradicted,  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  it 
may  have  a  general  foundation  of  truth.  It  must  be  confessed, 
however,  that  no  change  of  style  gives  any  indication  which  it  is 
easy  to  detect  of  a  succession  of  hands  ;  and  that,  judging  by  this 
criterion,  we  should  rather  be  led  to  infer  that,  in  Avhatever  way 
the  two  writers  contrived  to  combine  their  labors,  whether  by  the 
one  retouching  and  improving  what  the  other  had  rough-sketched, 
or  by  the  one  taking  the  quieter  and  humbler,  the  other  the  more 
impassioned,  scenes  or  portions  of  the  dialogue,  they  pursued  the 
same  method  throughout  the  piece.  Charles  Lamb  expresses  him- 
self "  willing  to  believe  that  Lord  Buckhurst  supplied  the  more 
vital  parts."  ^  At  the  same  time  he  observes  that  "  the  style  of 
this  old  play  is  stiff"  and  cumbersome,  like  the  dresses  of  its  times  ;  " 
and  that,  though  there  may  be  flesh  and  blood  imderneath,  we 
cannot  get  at  it.  In  truth,  Gorboduc  is  a  drama  only  in  form.  In 
Kpirit  and  manner  it  is  wholly  undramatic.  The  story  has  no  dra- 
matic capabilities,  no  evolution  either  of  action  or  of  character, 
although  it  affords  some  opportunities  for  description  and  eloquent 
declamation  ;  neither  was  there  anything  of  specially  dramatic 
aptitude  in  the  genius  of  Sackville  (to  Avhom  we  may  safely  attrib- 
ute whatever  is  most  meritorious  in  the  composition),  any  more 
than  there  would  appear  to  have  been  in  Spenser  or  in  Milton, 
illustrious  as  thc}^  both  stand  in  the  front  line  of  the  poets  of  their 
country  and  of  the  world.  Gorboduc,  accordingly,  is  a  most  unaf- 
'  Specimens  of  Eng.  Dram.  Poets,  i.  6  (edit,  of  1835). 


TRAGEDY   OF   GORBODUC.  479 

fecting  and  uninteresting  tragedy ;  as  would  also  be  the  noblest 
book  of  the  Fairy  Queen  or  of  Paradise  Lost  —  the  portion  of 
either  poem  that  soars  the  highest  —  if  it  were  to  be  attempted  to 
be  transformed  into  a  drama  by  merely  being  divided  into  acts  and 
scenes,  and  cut  up  into  the  outward  semblance  of  dialogue.  In 
whatever  abundance  all  else  of  poetry  might  be  outpoured,  the 
spirit  of  dialogue  and  of  dramatic  action  would  not  be  there. 
Gorboduc,  however,  though  a  dull  play,  is  in  some  other  respects 
a  remarkable  production  for  the  time.  The  language  is  not  dra- 
matic, but  it  is  throughout  singularly  coiTect,  easy,  and  perspicuous  ; 
in  many  parts  it  is  even  elevated  and  poetical ;  and  tliere  are  some 
passages  of  strong  painting  not  unworthy  of  the  hand  to  which 
we  owe  the  Induction  to  the  Legend  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham 
in  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates.  The  piece  has  accordingly  won 
much  applause  in  quarters  where  there  was  little  feelintr  of  the 
true  spirit  of  dramatic  writing  as  the  exposition  of  passion  in  action, 
and  where  the  chief  thins;  demanded  in  a  trao;edv  was  a  certain 
orderly  pomp  of  expression,  and  monotonous  respectability  of  sen- 
timent, to  fill  the  ear,  and  tranquillize  rather  than  excite  and  disturb 
the  mind.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  while  he  finds  fault  with  Gorboduc 
for  its  A'iolation  of  the  unities  of  time  and  place,  declares  it  to  be 
"  full  of  stately  speeches  and  well-sounding  phrases,  climbing  to 
the  lieight  of  Seneca  in  his  style,  and  as  fall  of  notable  morality, 
which  it  doth  most  delightfully  teach,  and  so  obtain  the  very  end 
of  poesy."  It  grieves  him,  he  adds,  that  it  is  so  "  very  defectuous 
in  the  circumstances,"  —  that  is,  the  unities,  —  because  that  must 
prevent  it  from  remaining  forever  "  as  an  exact  model  of  all 
tragedies."  ^  Rymer  terms  it  "  a  fable  better  turned  for  tragedy 
than  any  on  this  side  the  Alps  ;  "  and  affirms  that  "  it  might  have 
been  a  better  direction  to  Shakspeare  and  Ben  Jonson  than  any 
guide  they  have  had  the  luck  to  follow."  ^  Pope  has  delivered  his 
opinion  to  the  like  effect,  telling  us  that  "  the  writers  of  the  suc- 
ceeding age  might  have  improved  by  copying  from  this  drama  a 
propriety  in  the  sentiments  and  dignity  in  the  sentences,  and  an 
unaffected  perspicuity  of  style,  which  are  essential  to  tragedy." 
One  peculiarity  of  the  more  ancient  national  drama  retained  in 
Gorboduc  is  the  introduction,  before  every  act,  of  a  piece  of  ma- 
chinery called  the  Dumb  Show,  in  which  was  shadowed  forth,  by 
a,  sort  of  allegorical  exhibition,  the  part  of  the  story  that  was  immc- 
1  Defence  of  Poesy,  p.  84  (edit,  of  1810).  '-  Short  View  of  Tragedy,  p.  84. 


i80  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

diatelv  to  follow.  This  custom  survived  on  the  Eno-Hsh  stao-e  down 
to  a  considerably  later  date  ;  the  reader  may  remember  that  Shaks- 
peare,  though  he  rejected  it  in  his  own  di-amas,  has  introduced 
the  play  acted  before  the  King  and  Queen  in  Hamlet  by  such  a 
prefigurative  dumb  show.^ 

Another  expedient,  which  Shakspeare  has  also  on  two  occasions 
made  use  of,  namely,  the  assistance  of  a  chorus,  is  also  adopted  in 
Gorboduc  :  but  rather  by  way  of  mere  decoration,  and  to  keep  the 
stage  from  being  at  any  time  empty,  as  in  the  old  Greek  drama, 
than  to  carry  forward  or  even  to  explain  the  action,  as  in  Henry 
the  Fifth  and  Pericles.  It  consists,  to  quote  the  description  given 
by  Warton,  "  of  Four  Ancient  and  Sage  Men  of  Britain,  who 
regularly  close  every  act,  the  last  excepted,  with  an  ode  in  long- 
lined  stanzas,  drawing  back  the  attention  of  the  audience  to  the 
substance  of  Avhat  has  just  passed,  and  illustrating  it  by  recapitu- 
latory moral  reflections  and  poetical  or  historical  allusions."  ^ 
These  efltisions  of  the  chorus  are  all  in  rhyme,  as  being  intended 
to  be  of  the  same  lyrical  character  with  those  in  the  Greek  plays ; 
but  the  dialogue  in  the  rest  of  the  piece  is  in  blank  verse,  of  the 
employment  of  which  in  dramatic  composition  it  affords  the  earliest 
known  instance  in  the  language.  The  first  modern  experiment  in 
this  "  strange  metre,"  as  it  was  then  called,  had,  as  has  already 
been  noticed,  been  made  only  a  few  years  before  by  Lord  Surrey, 
in  his  translation  of  the  Second  and  Fourth  Books  of  the  ^neid, 
which  was  published  in  1557,  but  must  have  been  written  more 
than  ten  years  before,  Surrey  having  been  put  to  death  in  January 
1547.  In  the  mean  time  the  new  species  of  verse  had  been  culti- 
vated in  several  original  compositions  by  Nicholas  Grimoald,  from 
whom,  in  the  opinion  of  Warton,  the  rude  model  exhibited  by 
Surrey  received  "  new  strength,  elegance,  and  modulation."  ^ 
Grimoald's  pieces  in  blank  verse  were  first  printed  in  1557,  along 
with  Surrey's  translation,  in  Tottel's  collection  entitled  Songs  and 

1  Besides  the  original  1565  edition  of  Gorboduc,  there  was  another  in  1569  or 
1570,  and  a  tliird  in  1590.  It  was  again  reprinted  in  1736 ;  and  it  has  also  appeared 
in  all  the  editions  of  Dodsley's  Old  Plays,  1744,  1780,  and  1825.  It  has  now  been 
edited  for  the  Shakspearian  Society  by  Mr-  W.  T).  Cooper,  in  tlie  same  volume 
with  Ralph  Roister  Doisler.  Mr.  Cooper  lias  shown  that  the  edition  of  1590  was 
not,  as  has  been  supposed,  an  exact  reprint  of  tliat  of  1565.  He  has  also  given  us 
elaborate  biographies  both  of  Norton  and  of  Sackville,  in  the  latter  of  which  he 
has  shown  that  Sackville,  wlio  died  suddenly  at  the  Council-table  in  1608,  wai 
born  in  1536,  and  not  in  1527,  as  commonly  supposed. 

-  Hist.  Eng.  Poet.,  iv.  181.  »  Ibid.  iii.  846. 


DRAMATIC   BLANK   VERSE.  481 

Sonnets  of  Uncertain  Authors ;  and  we  are  not  aware  that  there 
was  any  more  Enghsh  blank  verse  written  or  given  to  the  world 
till  the  production  of  Gorboduc.  In  that  case,  Sackville  would 
stand  as  our  third  writer  in  this  species  of  verse  ;  in  the  use  of 
which  also  he  may  be  admitted  to  have  surpassed  Grimoald  fully 
as  much  as  the  latter  improved  upon  Soirrey.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
said  to  have  been  Gorboduc  that  really  established  blank  verse  in 
the  language  ;  for  its  employment  from  the  time  of  the  appearance 
of  that  tragedy  became  common  in  dramatic  composition,  while  in 
other  kinds  of  poetry,  notwithstanding  two  or  three  early  attempts, 
such  as  Gascoigne's  Steel  Glass,  in  1576,  Aske's  Elizabetha  Tri- 
umphans,  in  1588,  and  Vallans's  Tale  of  Two  Swans,  in  1590,  it 
never  made  head  against  rhyme,  nor  acquired  any  popularity,  till 
it  was  brought  into  repute  by  the  Paradise  Lost,  published  a  full 
century  after  Sackville's  play.  It  is  remai-kable  that  blank  verse 
is  never  mentioned  or  alluded  to  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  His 
Defence  of  Poesy,  which  could  not  have  been  written  more  than  a 
few  years  before  1586,  the  date  of  Sidney's  death,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-two.  Yet  he  was  acquainted  with  Gorboduc,  as  it  appears  ; 
and  in  one  part  of  his  tract  he  treats  expressly  on  the  subject  of 
versification,  of  which,  he  says,  "  there  are  two  sorts  —  the  one 
ancient,  the  other  modern  :  the  ancient  marked  the  quantity  of 
each  syllable,  and,  according  to  that,  framed  his  verse  ;  the  modern 
observing  only  number,  with  some  regard  to  the  accent,  the  chief 
life  of  it  standeth  in  that  like  sounding  of  the  words  which  we  call 
rhyme."  ^  Even  in  dramatic  composition  the  use  of  blank  verse 
appears  to  have  been  for  some  time  confined  to  pieces  not  intended 
for  popular  representation.  Gorboduc,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
brought  out  before  the  Queen  at  Whitehall;  and  although,  after 
that  example,  Mr.  Collier  observes,  "  blank  verse  was  not  unfre- 
quently  employed  in  performances  written  expressly  for  the  court 
and  for  representation  before  select  audiences,  many  years  elapsed 
before  this  heroic  measure  Avithout  rhyme  was  adopted  on  the  pub-> 
lie  stao;es  of  London."  ^ 

1  Defence  of  Poesy,  p.  98.  "  Hist.  Dram.  Poet,  ii.  485. 

VOL.   I.  #1 


482  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


OTHER   EARLY   DRAMAS. 

Within  a  fortnight  after  the  first  performance  of  Gorboduc,  it 
is  recorded  that  anotlier  historical  play,  entitled  Julius  Csesar,  was 
acted  at  court ;  but  of  this  piece  —  affording  "  the  earliest  instance 
on  record,"  Mr.  Collier  apprehends,  "  in  which  events  from  the 
Roman  history  were  dramatized  in  English  "  ^  —  nothing  is  known 
beyond  the  name.  To  about  the  same  time,  or  it  may  be  even  a 
year  or  two  earlier,  is  probably  to  be  assigned  another  early  drama, 
founded  on  the  story  of  Romeo  and  Juliet;  as  is  inferred  from  the 
assertion  of  Arthur  Brooke,  in  an  advertisement  prefixed  to  his 
poem  upon  that  subject  printed  in  1562,  that  he  had  seen  '"  the 
same  argument  lately  set  forth  on  the  stage."  But  whether  this 
was  a  regular  tragedy,  or  only  a  moral-play,  we  have  no  data  for 
conjecturing.  "  From  about  this  date,"  says  Mr.  Colher,  "  until 
shortly  after  the  year  1570,  the  field,  as  far  as  we  have  the  means 
of  judging,  seems  to  have  been  pretty  equally  divided  between  the 
later  morals,  and  the  earlier  attempts  in  tragedy,  comedy,  and  his- 
tory. In  some  pieces  of  this  date  (as  well  as  subsequently)  we  see 
endeavors  made  to  reconcile  or  combine  the  two  different  modes  of 
writing ;  but  morals  afterwards  generally  gave  way,  and  yielded 
the  victory  to  a  more  popular  and  more  intelligible  species  of  per- 
formance. The  license  to  James  Burbage  and  others  in  1574 
mentions  comedies,  tragedies,  interludes,  and  stage-plays  ;  and  in 
the  act  of  common  council  against  their  performance  in  the  city, 
in  the  following  year,  theatrical  performances  are  designated  as 
interludes,  tragedies,  comedies,  and  shows  ;  including  much  more 
than  the  old  miracle-plays,  or  more  recent  moral-plays,  which  would 
be  embraced  by  the  words  interludes,  shows,  and  even  stage-plays, 
but  to  which  the  tenns  tragedies,  and  comedies,  found  in  both 
instruments,  could  not  be  so  properly  applicable."  ^     We  may  add, 

1  Hist.  Dram.  Poet.,  ii.  415. 

-  Hist.  ii.  417.  Mr.  Collier  adds  in  a  note,  as  an  instance  of  how  the  names 
designating  the  different  kinds  of  plays  were  still  misapplied,  or  what  vague  notions 
were  as  yet  attached  to  them,  that,  so  late  as  in  1578,  Thomas  Lupton  called  his 
moral  of  All  for  ^loney  both  a  tragedy  and  a  comedy.  He  calls  it  in  the  title  "  a 
moral  and  i)itifnl  comedy  " ;  and  in  the  prologue,  "'^  jjleasant  tragedy"*  but  he 
seems,  nevertheless,  to  use  the  words  in  their  coir.r.)"'n  acceptation,  —  meaning  by 
these  quaint  jihrases  tiiRt  the  piece  is  .a  mixture  of  tragedy  and  comedy.  The 
catastrophe  is  sufficiently  tragical  :  Judas,  in  the  last  scene,  coming  in,  says  the 
Btage  direction,    "  like  a  damned   soul   in  black,  painted  with   flames  of  fire  anc? 


OTHER  EARLY  DRAMAS.  488 

in  order  to  finish  the  subject  here,  that  in  the  hcense  granted  by 
James  I.,  in  1603,  to  Burbage,  Shakspeare,  and  their  associates, 
tlie}^  are  authorized  to  play  "  comedies,  tragedies,  histories,  inter- 
ludes, morals,  pastorals,  stage-plays,  and  such  other  like  ;  "  and 
that  exactly  the  same  enumeration  is  found  in  the  patent  granted 
to  the  Prince  Palatine's  players  in  1612  ;  in  a  new  patent  gi-anted 
to  Burbage's  Company  in  1620  ;  ^  and  also  in  Charles  I.'s  patent 
to  Hemings  and  Condell  in  1625.  Morals,  properly  so  called,  how- 
ever,  had  disappeared  from  the  stage  long  before  this  last  date, 
though  something  of  their  peculiar  character  still  survived  in  the 
pageant  or  masque.  It  may  be  observed  that  there  is  no  mention 
cf  morals,  any  more  than  of  miracle-plays,  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
several  species  of  dramatic  entertainments  which  Shakspeare  has 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Polonius  in  Hamlet,  and  in  which  he  seems 
to  glance  slyly  at  the  almost  equally  extended  string  of  distinctions 
in  the  royal  patents. 

Of  the  greater  number  of  the  plays  that  are  recorded  to  have 
been  produced  in  the  first  twenty  years  after  the  appearance  of 
Gorboduc,  only  the  names  have  been  preserved,  from  which  it  can- 
not in  all  cases  be  certainly  determined  to  what  class  the  piece 
belono-ed.  From  the  lists,  extracted  from  the  accounts  of  the  Mas- 
ter  of  the  Revels,  of  those  represented  before  the  court  between 
1568  and  1580,  and  which  no  doubt  were  mostly  the  same  that 
were  exhibited  in  the  common  playhouses,  it  appears  probable  that, 
out  of  fifty-two,  about  eighteen  were  founded  upon  subjects  of  an- 
cient history  or  fable  ;  twenty-one  upon  modern  history,  romances, 

with  a  fearful  vizHrd,"  followed  by  Dives,  "  with  such  like  apparel  as  Judas  hath  " , 
while  Damnation  (another  of  the  dramatis  personce),  pursuing  them,  drives  them 
before  liini,  and  tliey  pass  away,  "  malting  a  pitiful  noise,"  into  perdition.  A  few 
years  before,  in  like  manner,  Thomas  Preston  had  called  his  play  of  Cambyses, 
King  of  Persia,  which  is  a  mixture  of  moral  and  history,  "a  lamentable  tragedy 
full  of  pleasant  mirth  "  on  the  title-page,  and  in  the  running  title  A  Comedie  of 
King  Cambises.  Another  play  of  about  the  same  date,  and  of  similar  character, 
that  of  Appius  and  Virginia,  by  R.  B.,  is  styled  "a  tragical  comedy."  At  a  still 
earlier  period,  both  in  our  own  and  in  other  languages,  the  terms  tragedy  and 
comedy  were  applied  to  other  narrative  compositions  as  well  as  to  those  in  a  dra- 
matic form.  The  most  illustrious  instance  of  sucli  a  use  of  the  term  comedy  is  its 
employment  by  Dante  for  the  title  of  his  great  poem,  because  —  as  he  has  Wmself 
expressly  told  us  in  his  dedication  of  the  Paradise  to  Cane  della  Scala,  Prince  of 
-Verona  —  the  story,  although  it  began  sadly,  ended  prosperously.  Even  the  nar- 
ratives in  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates,  published,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  latter  pan 
■)f  the  sixteenth  century,  v/ere  still  called  tragedies. 
'  Sec  it,  printed  for  tbc  tir^t  time,  in  Collier,  i.  416. 


484  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  stories  of  a  more  general  kind ;  and  that,  of  the  remaindtr. 
seven  were  comedies,  and  six  morals.^  "  Of  these  fifty-two  dra- 
matic productions,"  Mr.  Collier  observes,  "not  one  can  be  said  tc 
have  survived,  although  there  may  be  reason  to  believe  that  some 
of  them  formed  the  foundation  of  plays  acted  at  a  later  period." 
Among  the  very  few  original  plays  of  this  period  that  have  come 
down  to  us  is  one  entitled  Damon  and  Pytheas,  which  was  acted 
before  the  Queen  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  in  September,  1566, 
and  was  the  production  of  Richard  Edwards,  who,  in  the  general 
estimation  of  his  contemporaries,  seems  to  have  been  accounted  the 
greatest  dramatic  genius  of  his  day,  at  least  in  the  comic  style. 
His  Damon  and  Pytheas  does  not  justify  their  laudation  to  a 
modern  taste  ;  it  is  a  mixture  of  comedy  and  tragedy,  between 
which  it  would  be  hard  to  decide  whether  the  grave  writing  or  the 
gay  is  the  rudest  and  dullest.  The  play  is  in  rhyme,  but  some 
variety  is  produced  by  the  measure  or  length  of  the  line  being 
occasionally  changed.  Mr.  Collier  thinks  that  the  notoi'iety  Ed- 
wards attained  may  probably  have  been  in  great  part  owing  to  the 
novelty  of  his  subjects  ;  Damon  and  Pytheas  being  one  of  the  ear- 
liest attempts  to  bring  stories  from  profane  history  upon  the  English 
stage.  Edwards,  however,  besides  his  plays,  wrote  many  other 
things  in  verse,  some  qf  which  have  an  ease,  and  even  an  elegance, 
that  neither  Sru'rey  himself  nor  any  other  writer  of  that  age  has 
excelled.  Most  of  these  shorter  compositions  are  contained  in  the 
miscellany  called  the  Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices,  AAdiich,  indeed, 
is  stated  on  the  title-page  to  have  been  "  devised  and  written  for 
the  most  part "  by  Edwards,  who  had,  however,  been  dead  ten 
years  when  the  first  edition  appeared  in  1576.  Among  them  are 
the  very  beautiful  and  tender  lines,  which  have  been  often  re- 
printed, in  illustration  of  Terence's  apophthegm,  — 

"  Amantium  irse  amoris  redintegi'atio  est ;  " 

or,  as  it  is  here  rendered  in  the  burden  of  each  stanza,  — 

"  The  falling  out  of  foithful  friends  renewing  is  of  love." 

1  See  tlie  lists  in  Collier,  iii.  24,  25.  But  compare  the  list  jjiven  by  Mr.  P.  Cun- 
ninfrhani  at  the  end  of  his  Extracts  from  the  Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court  in  the 
Koifins  of  Queen  Eh'zabeth  and  Kintr  James  I.,  printed  for  the  Shakespeare  Society, 
Hvo.  Lond.  1842.  Some  items  in  Mr.  Collier's  classification  may  be  questioned. 
For  examiile.  the  story  of  Titus  and  Gisippus  is  not  a  "  classical  subject  drawn 
from  ancient  historv  or  fable." 


OTHER  EARLY  DRAMAS.  485 

Edwards,  who,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  was  appointed  one  of 
the  gentlemen  of  the  Chapel  Royal  and  master  of  the  queen'3 
singing-boys,  "  united,"  says  Warton,  "  all  those  arts  and  accom- 
plishments which  minister  to  popular  pleasantry :  he  was  the  first 
fiddle,  the  most  fashionable  sonnetteer,  the  readiest  rhymer,  and 
the  most  facetious  mimic,  of  the  court."  ^  Another  surviving  play 
produced  during  this  interval  is  the  Tragedy  of  Tancred  and  Gis- 
mund,  founded  upon  Boccaccio's  well-known  story,  which  was 
presented  before  Elizabeth  at  the  Inner  Temple  in  1568,  the  five 
acts  of  which  it  consists  being  severally  written  by  five  gentlemen 
of  the  society,  of  whom  one,  the  author  of  the  third  act,  was 
Christopher  Hatton,  afterwards  the  celebrated  dancing  lord  chan- 
cellor. The  play,  however,  was  not  printed  till  1592,,  when  Robert 
Wilmot,  the  writer  of  the  fifth  act,  gave  it  to  the  world,  as  the 
title-page  declares,  "  newly  revived,  and  polished  according  to  the 
decorum  of  these  days."  The  meaning  of  this  announcement, 
Mr.  Collier  conceives  to  be,  that  the  piece  was  in  the  first  instance 
composed  in  rhyme  ;  but,  rhymed  plays  having  by  the  year  1592 
gone  out  of  fashion  even  on  the  public  stage,  Wilmot's  reviving 
and  polishing  consisted  chiefly  in  cutting  off  many  of  the  "  tags  to 
the  lines,"  or  turning  them  differently.  The  tragedy  of  Tancred 
and  Gismund,  which,  like  Gorboduc,  has  a  dumb  show  at  the  com- 
mencement and  a  chorus  at  the  close  of  every  act,  is,  he  observes, 
"  the  earliest  English  play  extant  the  plot  of  which  is  known  to 
be  derived  from  an  Italian  novel."  ^  To  this  earliest  stage  in  the 
history  of  the  regular  drama  belong,  finally,  some  plays  translated 
or  adapted  from  the  ancient  and  from  foreign  languages,  which 
doubtless  also  contributed  to  excite  and  give  an  impulse  to  the 
national  taste  and  genius  in  this  department.  There  is  extant  an 
old  English  printed  version,  in  rhyme,  of  the  Andria  of  Terence, 
which,  although  without  date,  is  believed  to  ha^^e  been  published 
before  1530 ;  and  the  moral,  or  interlude,  called  Jack  Juggler, 
which  is  founded  upon  the  Amphitruo  of  Plautus,  appears  from 
internal  evidence  to  have  been  written  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI. 
or  Mary,  though  not  printed  till  after  the  accession  of  Elizabeth. 
These  early  and  very  rude  attempts  were  followed  by  a  series  t)f 
translations  of  the  tragedies  of  Seneca,  all  likewise  in  rhyme,  the 
first  of  which,  the  Troas,  by  Jasper  Heywood,  son  of  tlie  celebrated 
Tohn  Heywood,  was  published  in  1559  ;  the  second,  the  Thyestes, 
1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.,  iv.  110.  2  Hist.  Dram.  Poet.,  iii.  13. 


480  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

also  by  Heywoocl,  in  1560  ;  the  third,  the  Hercules  Furens,  by 
the  same  hand,  in  1561  ;  the  fourth,  the  ffidipus,  by  Alexander 
Nevyle,  in  1563 ;  the  fifth  and  sixth,  the  Medea  and  the  Agamem- 
non, by  John  Studley,  in  1566.  The  Octavia,  by  Thomas  Nuee, 
was  entered  on  the  Stationers'  Books  in  the  same  year,  but  no  copy 
of  that  date  is  now  known  to  exist.  Versions  of  the  Hyppolytus 
and  the  Hercules  Oetaeus  by  Studley,  and  of  the  Thebais  by 
Thomas  Newton,  wei*e  added  when  the  whole  were  republished 
together,  in  1581,  under  the  title  of  "  Seneca  his  Ten  Tragedies 
translated  into  English."  Of  the  authors  of  these  translations, 
Heywood  and  Studley  in  particular  "  have  some  claim,"  as  Mr. 
Collier  remai'ks,  "  to  be  viewed  in  the  light  of  original  dramatic 
])oets  ;  they  added  whole  scenes  and  choruses  wherever  they 
thought  them  necessary."  But  Heywood  and  his  coadjutors  in 
this  undertaking  do  not  appear  to  have  had  any  view  of  bringing 
Seneca  upon  the  English  stage  ;  nor  is  it  probable  that  any  of 
their  translated  dramas  were  ever  acted.  In  1566,  however.  The 
Supposes,  a  prose  translation  by  George  Gascoigne  ti'om  Gli  Sup- 
positi  of  Ariosto,  and  another  play,  in  blank  verse,  entitled  Jocasta, 
taken  from  the  Pha^nissa^  of  Euripides,  by  Gascoigne  and  Francis 
KiuAvelmarsh,  were  both  represented  at  Gray's  Inn.  The  Jocasta 
was,  therefore,  the  second  English  play  written  in  blank  verse. 
"  It  is,"  says  Warton,  "  partly  a  paraphrase  and  partly  an  abridg- 
ment of  the  Greek  tragedy.  There  are  many  omissions,  retrench- 
ments, and  transpositions.  The  chorus,  the  characters,  and  the 
substance  of  the  story  are  entirely  retained,  and  the  tenor  of  the 
dialogue  is  often  pi'eserved  through  whole  scenes.  Some  of  the 
beautifiil  odes  of  the  Greek  chorus  are  neglected,  and  others  sub- 
stituted in  their  places,  newly  written  by  the  translators."  ^  These 
sul)stituti()ns,  however,  sometimes  display  considerable  poetic  talent ; 
:ind  the  versification  throughout  the  piece,  both  in  the  old  metre 
(in  which  the  choral  })assages  are  written)  and  in  the  new,  flows 
with  a  facility  and  smoothness  which,  as  contrasted  with  any  Eng- 
lish verse  written  twenty  years  before,  indicates  a  rate  of  progress 
linring  that  space,  in  the  subsidence  of  the  language  into  compara- 
ti\('  regularity  of  grammatical  and  syntactical  forms,  which  is  very 
surprising.  Warton  remarks,  as  a  proof  of  the  rapidity  with  which 
the  work  of  refinement  or  change  weut  on  in  the  language  at  this 
time,  that  "  in  the  second  edition  of  this  play,  printed  again  v  ith 
1   Hist.  Eng.  Poet.,  iv.  197. 


PEEL?:;   GREENE.  487 

Gasooigne's  poems  in  1587,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  affix  mar 
ginal  explanations  of  many  words,  not  long  before  in  common  use, 
but  now  become  obsolete  and  unintelligible."  In  the  present 
instance  this  was  done,  as  the  author  tells  us,  at  the  request  of  a 
lady,  who  did  not  understand  "  poetical  words  or  terms."  But  it 
was  a  practice  occasionally  followed  down  to  a  much  later  date. 
To  all  the  quarto  editions,  for  example,  of  Joshua  Sylvester's  metri- 
cal translation  of  Du  Bartas  (1605,  1608,  1613)  there  is  a})pended 
'*  A  brief  Index,  explaining  most  of  the  hardest  words  scattered 
through  this  whole  work,  for  ease  of  such  as  are  least  exercised  in 
those  kind  of  readings."  It  consists  of  thirty  double-columned 
pages,  and  may  contain  about  six  hundred  woi'ds.^ 


SECOND  STAGE  OF  THE  REGULAR  DRAMA.  —  PEELK , 

GREENE. 

It  thus  appears  that  numerous  pieces  entitled  by  their  form  to 
be  accounted  as  belonging  to  the  regular  drama  had  been  produced 
before  the  year  1580  ;  but  nevertheless  no  dramatic  work  had  yet 

^  Most  of  these  are  proper  names  ;  many  others  are  scientific  terms.  Among  the 
explanations  are  the  following:  —  Aimals,  Histories  from  }-ear  to  year.  —  Anchises' 
pheere,  Venus  {/iluere  itself  is  not  explained,  and  may  therefore  be  supposed  to  have 
been  still  in  common  use).  —  Bdcchami/ian  /rows,  Women-priests  of  Bacchus,  the 
God  of  Cups.  —  Barrgepse  and  Barnacles,  a  kind  of  fowls  that  grow  of  rotten  trees 
and  broken  ships.  —  Demain,  possessions  of  inheritance,  time  out  of  mind  continued 
in  the  possession  ot  the  lord.  —  Duel,  single  combat.  —  Melajthi/sical,  supernatural. — 
Poetasters,  base,  counterfeit,  unlearned,  witless,  and  wanton  jmets,  that  pester  the 
world  either  ■with  idle  vanities  or  odious  villanies.  —  Patagons,  Indian  cannibals, 
euch  as  eat  man's  flesh.  —  Scaliger,  Josephus,  now  living,  a  Frenchman  admirable  in 
all  languages  for  all  manner  of  learning  (so  in  edition  of  1613,  though  Jos.  Scaliger 
died  in  1609).  These  explanatory  vocabularies  are  sometimes,  also,  found  appended 
to  prose  works  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  Mr.  Hallam,  in  a  note 
to  his  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  iii.  p.  370,  has  observed  that, 
in  Pratt's  edition  of  Bishop  Hall's  works,  we  have  a  glossary  of  obsolete  or  unusual 
words,  employed  by  him,  which  amount  to  more  than  1100,  some  of  them  Galli- 
cisms, but  the  greater  part  of  Latin  or  Greek  origin.  This  book  was  published 
after  the  Restoration.  By  that  time  we  see  the  difHculty  ordinary  readers  had  was, 
to  understand  the  old  words  that  were  going  out  of  fashion ;  whereas,  that  of  their 
ancestors,  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  was  to  understand  the  new  words 
that  were  flowing  so  fast  into  their  mother-tongue.  This  little  circumstance  is  very 
luriously  significant,  not  onlv  of  the  ojiposite  directions  in  which  the  language  waj 
jioving  at  the  two  periods,  but  of  the  difference,  also,  in  other  respects,  between 
•in  age  of  advancement  and  hope,  and  one  of  weariness,  retrogression,  and  decrepi- 
tude. 


488  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

been  written  which  can  be  said  to  liave  taken  its  place  in  our  lit* 
erature,  or  to  have  almost  any  interest  for  succeeding  generations 
on  account  of  its  intrinsic  merits  and  apart  from  its  mere  antiquity. 
The  next  ten  years  disclose  a  new  scene.  Within  that  space  a 
crowd  of  dramatists  arose  whose  writings  still  form  a  portion  of 
our  living  poetry,  and  present  the  regular  drama,  no  longer  only 
painfully  struggling  into  the  outward  shape  proper  to  that  species 
of  composition,  but  having  the  breath  of  life  breathed  into  it,  and 
beginning  to  throb  and  stir  with  the  pulsations  of  genuine  passion. 
We  can  only  here  shortly  notice  some  of  the  chief  names  in  this 
numerous  company  of  our  early  dramatists,  properly  so  called. 
One  to  wliom  much  attention  has  been  recently  directed  is  George 
Peele,  the  first  of  whose  dramatic  productions.  The  Arraignment 
of  Paris,  a  sort  of  masque  or  pageant  which  had  been  re])resented 
before  the  queen,  was  printed  anonymously  in  1584.  But  Peele's 
most  celebrated  drama  is  his  Love  of  King  David  and  Fair  Bfeth- 
sabe,  first  ])ublished  in  1599,  two  or  three  years  after  the  author's 
death.  This  play  Mr.  Campbell  has  called  "  the  earliest  fountain 
of  pathos  and  harmony  that  can  be  traced  in  our  dramatic  poetry  >" 
and  he  adds,  "  there  is  no  such  sweetness  of  versification  and  im- 
agery to  be  found  in  our  blank  verse  anterior  to  Shakspeare."  ^ 
David  and  Bethsabe  was,  in  all  probability,  written  not  anterior 
to  Shakspeare,  but  after  he  had  been  at  least  six  or  seven  years  a 
■writer  for  the  stage,  and  had  produced  perhaps  ten  or  twelve  of 
his  plays,  including  some  of  those  in  which,  to  pass  over  all  other 
and  higher  things,  the  nnisic  of  the  verse  has  ever  been  accounted 
the  most  ]ierfect  and  delicious.  We  know  at  least  that  The  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  Romeo  and  Jiiliet,  The  Merchant  of 
Venice,  Richard  II.,  King  John,  and  Richard  III.,  were  all  writ- 
ten and  acted,  if  not  all  printed,  before  Peele's  play  was  given  to 
the  Avorld.^  But,  independently  of  this  consideration,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  best  of  Peele's  blank  verse,  though  smooth  and 
flowing,  and  sometimes  tastefully  decorated  with  the  embellishments 
of  a  learned  and  imitative  fancy,  is  both  deficient  in  richness  or 
even  variety  of  modulation,  and  without  any  pretensions  to  the 
force  and  fire  of  original  ])oetic  genius.  It  may  be  true,  nevei  - 
theless,  as  is  conceded  by  Mr.  Collier,  one  of  the  modern  critics 
with  whom  Peele  has  not  found  so  much  favor  as  with  Mr.  Camp- 

'  Si)oc.  of  Knjr.  Poet.,  i.  140. 

-  Tliis  is  established  by  the  often  quoted  passage  in  Mcres's  Wit's  Treasury, 
publiehed  in  1698,  in  whicii  these  and  others  of  Siiakspeare's  plays  are  enumerated 


PEELE;    GKJi>l^.Nj^.  189 

bell  and  witli  Mr.  Dyce,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  first 
collected  edition  of  his  plays, ^  that  "  he  had  an  elegance  of  fancy, 
a  gracefulness  of  expression,  and  a  melody  of  versification  which, 
in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career,  was  scarcely  approached."  ^ 
Another  of  Peele's  pieces,  entitled  The  Old  Wives'  Tale,  a  Pleas 
ant  conceited  Comedy,  printed  in  1595,  has  excited  some  cviriosity 
from  a  resemblance  it  bears  in  the  story,  though  in  little  or  nothing 
else,  to  Milton's  Masque  of  Comus.^  Contemporary  with  Peele 
was  Robert  Greene,  the  author  of  five  plays,  besides  one  written 
in  conjunction  with  a  fi'iend.  Greene  died  in  1592,  and  he  appears 
only  to  have  begun  to  write  for  the  stage  about  1587.  Mr.  Collier 
thinks  that,  in  facility  of  expression,  and  in  the  flow  of  his  blank 
verse,  he  is  not  to  be  placed  below  Peele.  But  Greene's  most 
characteristic  attribute  is  his  turn  for  merriment,  of  which  Peele 
in  his  dramatic  productions  shows  little  or  nothing.  His  comedy, 
or  farce  i-ather,  is  no  doubt  usually  coarse  enougli,  but  the  turbid 
stream  flows  at  least  freely  and  abundantly.  Among  his  plays  is 
a  curious  one  on  the  subject  of  the  History  of  Friar  Bacon  and 
Friar  Bungay,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  written  in  1588  or 
1589,  though  first  published  in  1594.  This,  however,  is  not  so 
much  a  story  of  diablerie  as  of  mere  legerdemain,  mixed,  like  all 
the  rest  of  Greene's  pieces,  with  a  good  deal  of  farcical  incident 
and  dialogue ;  even  the  catastrophe,  in  which  one  of  the  chai'acters 
is  carried  off  to  hell,  being  so  managed  as  to  impart  no  supernatural 
interest  to  the  drama.* 

^  Dramatic  Works  of  George  Peele  (with  his  Poems),  by  the  Rev.  Alexander 
Dyce,  2  vols.  8vo.  London,  1829. 

2  Mr.  Hallam's  estimate  is,  perhaps,  not  quite  so  high  :  "  Peele  has  some  com- 
mand of  imagery,  but  in  every  other  quality  it  seems  to  me  that  he  has  scarce  any 
claim  to  honor ;  and  I  doubt  if  there  are  three  lines  together  in  any  of  his  plays 
that  could  be  mistaken  for  Shakspeare's.  .  .  .  The  versification  of  Peele  is  much 
inferior  to  that  of  Marlow;  and,  though  sometimes  poetical,  he  seems  rarely  dra- 
matic." —  Lit.  of  Eur.  ii.  273. 

^  This  was  first  pointed  out  by  Isaac  Reed  in  the  appendi.x  to  his  edition  of 
Baker's  Biographia  Dramatica,  1782,  vol.  ii.  p.  441.  The  subject  has  been  exam- 
ined at  length  by  Warton  in  his  Minor  Poems  of  Milton,  pp.  135, 136 ;  and  again, 
pp.  575-577  (2d  edit.  Lond.  1791).  He  observes,  "That  Milton  had  an  eye  on 
this  ancient  drama,  wliicii  might  have  been  tlie  favorite  of  his  early  youth,  perhaps 
may  be  at  least  affirmed  with  as  much  credibility  as  that  he  conceived  the  Paradise 
Lost  from  seeing  a  mystery  at  Florence,  written  by  Andreini,  a  Florentine,  in  1617, 
entitled  Adamo." 

*  Greene's  plays  are  collected  under  the  title  of  The  Dramatic  Works  of  Robert 
Greene,  to  which  are  added  his  Poems  ;  with  some  Account  of  the  Author,  and 
Notes ;  by  the  Rev.  Alexander  Dyce;  2  vols.  8vo.  1831. 
VOL.  I.  62 


490  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 


MARLOW. 

Of  a  different  and  far. higher  order  of  poetical  and  dramatic 
character  is  another  play  of  this  date  upon  a  similar  subject,  the 
'J'ra<iical  History  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  Doctor  Faustus,  by  Chris- 
topher Marlow.  Marlow  died  at  an  early  age  in  1593,  the  year 
after  Greene,  and  three  or  four  years  before  Peele.  He  had  been 
a  writer  for  the  stage  at  least  since  1586,  in  Avhich  year,  or  befoi'e, 
was  brought  out  the  play  of  Tamburlaine  the  Great,  his  claim  to 
tlie  authorship  of  which  has  been  conclusively  established  by  Mr. 
Collier,  who  has  fiirther  sliown  that  this  was  the  first  play  written 
in  blank  verse  that  was  exhibited  on  the  public  stage.^  "  Marlow's 
mighty  line "  has  been  celebrated  by  Ben  Jonson  in  his  famous 
xerses  on  Shakspeare  ;  but  Drayton,  the  author  of  the  Polyolbion, 
has  extolled  him  in  the  most  glowing  description,  —  in  words  the 
most  worthy  of  the  theme  :  — 

Next  Marlow,  bathed  in  the  Thespian  springs, 
Had  in  him  those  brave  translunary  things 
That  the  first  poets  liad :  his  raptures  were 
All  air  and  fire,  which  made  his  verses  clear : 
For  that  fine  madness  still  he  did  retain, 
Which  rightly  should  possess  a  poet's  brain.^ 

Marlow  is,  by  nearly  universal  admission,  our  greatest  dramatic 
writer  before  Shakspeare.  He  is  frequently,  indeed,  turgid  and 
bombastic,  especially  in  his  earliest  play,  Tamburlaine  the  Great, 
wliich  has  just  been  mentioned,  where  his  fire,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, sometimes  blazes  out  of  all  bounds  and  becomes  a  mere  wast- 
ing conflagration  —  sometimes  only  raves  in  a  furious  storm  of 
sound,  filling  the  ear  Avithout  any  other  effect.  But  in  his  fits  of 
truer  inspiration,  all  the  magic  of  terror,  pathos,  and  beauty  flashes 
from  him  in  streams.  The  gradual  accunnilation  of  the  agonies  of 
Faustus,  in  the  concluding  scene  of  that  play,  as  the  moment  of 
his  awfiil  fate  comes  nearer  and  nearer,  powerfully  drawn  as  it  is, 
is  far  from  being  one  of  those  coarse  pictures  of  wretchedness  that 
merely  oppress  us  with  horror :  the  most  admirable  skill  is  ap})lied 
throughout  in  balancing  that  emotion  by  sympathy  and  even  re- 
spect for  the  sufi'erer,  — 

1  Hist.  Dram.  Poet.,  iii.  pp.  107-1 2f5. 

*  Elegy,  "  To  my  dearly  beloved  friend  Henry  Reynolds,  Of  Poets  and  Presy." 


LYLY;   KYD;   LODGE.  401 

for  he  was  a  scholar  once  adrnu-ed 

For  wondrous  knowledge  in  our  German  schools,  — 

and  yet  without  disturbing  our  acquiescence  in  the  justice  of  hig 
doom  ;  till  we  close  the  book,  saddened,  indeed,  but  not  dissatisfied, 
with  the  pitying  but  still  tributary  and  almost  consoling  words  of 
the  Chorus  on  our  hearts,  — 

Cut  is  the  branch  that  might  have  grown  full  straight, 

And  burned  is  Apollo's  laurel-bough 

That  sometime  grew  within  this  learned  man. 

Still  finer,  perhaps,  is  the  conclusion  of  another  of  Marlow's 
dramas  —  his  tragedy  of  Edward  the  Second.  "  The  reluctant 
pangs  of  abdicating  royalty  in  Edward,"  says  Charles  Lamb,  ''  fur- 
nished hints  which  Shakspeare  scarce  improved  in  his  Richard  the 
Second;  and  the  death-scene  of  Mai-low's  king  moves  pity  and 
terror  beyond  any  scene,  ancient  or  modern,  with  which  1  am  ac- 
quainted." ^  Much  splendor  of  poetry,  also,  is  expended  upon  the 
delineation  of  Barabas,  in  The  Rich  Jew  of  Malta ;  but  Marlow's 
Jew,  as  Lamb  has  observed,  "  does  not  approach  so  near  to  Sliaks- 
peare's  [in  the  Merchant  of  Venice]  as  his  Edward  the  Second." 
We  are  more  reminded  of  some  of  Barabas's  speeches  by  the  mag- 
nificent declamation  of  Mammon  in  Jonson's  Alchymist.^ 


LYLY  ;   KYD  ;  LODGE. 

Marlow,  Greene,  and  Peele  are  the  most  noted  names  among 
those  of  our  drainatists  who  belong  exclusively  to  the  age  of  Eliza- 
beth ;  but  some  others  tliat  have  less  modern  celebrity  may  perhaps 
be  placed  at  least  on  the  same  line  with  the  two  latter.  John  Lyly, 
the  Euphuist,  as  he  is  called,  from  one  of  his  prose  works,  which 
will  be  noticed  presently,  is,  as  a  poet,  in  his  happiest  eftbrts,  ele- 
gant and  fanciful ;  but  his  genius  was  better  suited  for  the  lighter 
kinds  of  lyric  poetry  than  for  the  drama.  He  is  the  author  of  nine 
dramatic  pieces,  but  of  these  seven  are  in  prose,  and  only  one  in 

1  Spec,  of  Eng.  Dram.  Poets,  i.  31. 

■•^  The  works  of  Christopher  Marlow,  with  Notes  and  a  Life,  have  been  edited  by 
Mr.  Dyce,  in  3  vols.  8vo.  Lond.  1850. 


492  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

rhyme  and  one  in  blank  verse.  All  of  them,  according  to  Mr. 
Colliei',  "  seem  to  have  been  written  for  court  entertainments, 
although  they  were  also  performed  at  theatres,  most  usually  by  the 
children  of  St.  Paul's  and  the  Revels."  They  were  fitter,  it  might 
be  added,  for  beguiling  the  listlessness  of  courts  than  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  a  popular  audience,  athirst  for  action  and  passion,  and 
very  indifferent  to  mere  ingenuities  of  style.  All  poetical  readers, 
however,  remember  some  songs  and  other  short  pieces  of  verse 
with  which  some  of  them  are  interspersed,  particularly  a  dehcate 
little  anacreontic  in  that  entitled  Alexander  and  Campaspe,  begin- 
ning — 

Cupid  and  my  Campaspe  played 

At  cards  for  kisses,  &c. 

Mr.  Collier  observes  that  Malone  must  have  spoken  from  a  very 
superficial  acquaintance  with  Lyly's  works  when  he  contends  that 
his  plays  are  comparatively  free  from  those  affected  conceits  and 
remote  allusions  that  characterize  most  of  his  other  productions. 
Thomas  Kyd,  the  author  of  the  two  plays  of  Jeronimo  and  the 
Spanish  Tragedy  (which  is  a  continuation  of  the  former),  besides 
a  translation  of  another  piece  from  the  French,  appears  to  be  called 
Sporting  Kyd  by  Jonson,  in  his  verses  on  Shakspeare,  in  allusion 
merely  to  his  name.  There  is,  at  least,  nothing  particularly  spor- 
tive in  the  little  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  his  pen.  Kyd  was 
a  considerable  master  of  language  ;  but  his  rank  as  a  dramatist 
is  not  very  easily  settled,  seeing  that  there  is  much  doubt  as  to  his 
claims  to  the  authorshii)  of  by  far  the  most  striking  passages  in  the 
Spanish  Tragedy,  the  best  of  his  two  plays.  Lamb,  quoting  the 
scenes  in  question,  describes  them  as  "  the  very  salt  of  the  old 
play,"  which,  without  them,  he  adds,  "  is  but  a  caput  j7iortuum." 
It  lias  been  generally  assumed  that  they  were  added  by  Ben  Jon- 
son, who  certainly  was  employed  to  make  some  additions  to  this 
play ;  and  Mr.  Collier  attributes  them  to  him  as  if  the  point  did 
not  admit  of  a  doubt  —  acknowledging,  however,  that  they  repre- 
sent Jonson  in  a  new  light,  and  that  "  certainly  there  is  nothing  in 
his  own  entire  plays  equalling  in  pathetic  beauty  some  of  his  con- 
tiibutions  to  the  Spanish  Tragedy."  Nevertheless,  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  perfectly  clear  that  the  supposed  contributions  by  another 
hand  might  not  have  been  the  work  of  Kyd  himself.  Lamb  says, 
''  There  is  nothing  in  the  undoubted  plays  of  Jonson  which  would 
mthorize  us  to  suj)pose  that  he  could  have  supplied  the  scenes  in 


LYLY;   KYD;    LODGE.  493 

question.  I  should  suspect  the  agency  of  some  '  more  potent  spirit.' 
Webster  might  have  furnished  them.  They  are  full  of  tliat  wild, 
solemn,  preternatural  cast  of  grief  which  bewilders  us  in  the  Duch- 
ess of  Malfy."  The  last  of  these  early  dramatists  we  shall  notice, 
Thomas  Lodge,  who  was  born  about  1556,  and  began  to  write  for 
the  stage  about  1580,  is  placed  by  Mr.  Collier  "  in  a  rank  superior 
to  Greene,  but  in  some  respects  inferior  to  Kyd."  His  principal 
dramatic  work  is  entitled  The  Wounds  of  Civil  War,  lively  set 
foi-th  in  the  true  Tragedies  of  Marius  and  Sylla  ;  and  is  written  in 
blank  verse  with  a  mixture  of  rhyme.  It  shows  him,  Mr.  Collier 
thinks,  to  have  unquestionably  the  advantage  over  Kyd  as  a  drawer 
of  character,  tliough  not  equalling  that  writer  in  general  vigor  and 
boldness  of  poetic  conception.  His  blank  verse  is  also  much  more 
monotonous  than  that  of  Kyd.  Another  strange  drama  in  rhyme, 
written  by  Lodge  in  conjunction  with  Greene,  is  entitled  A  Look- 
ing-glass for  London  and  England,  and  has  for  its  object  to  put 
down  the  puritanical  outcry  against  tlie  immorality  of  the  stage, 
which  it  attempts  to  accomplish  by  a  grotesque  application  to  the 
city  of  London  of  the  Scriptural  story  of  Nineveh.  The  whole 
performance,  in  Mr.  Colher's  opinion,  "  is  wearisomely  dull, 
although  the  authors  have  endeavored  to  lighten  the  weight  by 
the  introduction  of  scenes  of  drunken  buffoonery  between  '  a  clown 
and  his  crew  of  ruffians,'  and  between  the  same  clown  and  a  per- 
son disguised  as  the  devil,  in  order  to  frighten  him,  but  who  is 
detected  and  well  beaten."  Mr.  Hallam,  however,  pronounces 
that  there  is  great  talent  shown  in  this  play,  "  thougli  upon  a  very 
strange  canvass."  ^  Lodge,  who  was  an  eminent  physician,  has  left 
a  considerable  quantity  of  other  poetry  besides  his  plays,  partly  in 
the  form  of  novels  or  tales,  partly  in  shorter  pieces,  many  of  which 
may  be  found  in  the  miscellany  called  England's  Helicon,  from 
which  a  few  of  them  have  been  extracted  by  Mr.  Ellis,  in  his 
Specimens.  They  are,  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  more  creditable  to 
his  poetical  powers  than  his  dramatic  performances.  He  is  also 
the  author  of  several  short  works  in  prose,  sometimes  interspersed 
with  verse.  One  of  his  prose  tales,  first  printed  in  1590,  under 
the  title  of  Rosalynde :  Euphues'  Golden  Legacie,  found  in  his  cell 
at  Silextra  (for  Lodge  was  one  of  Lyly's  imitators),  is  famous  as 
the  source  from  which  Shakspeare  appears  to  have  taken  the  story 
of  his  As  You  Like  It.  "Of  this  production  it  may  be  said," 
1  Literature  of  Eur.  ii.  274. 


494  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

observes  Mr.  Collier,  "  that  our  admiration  of  many  portions  of  it 
will  not  be  diminished  by  a  comparison  Avith  the  work  of  our  o-reat 
dramatist."  ^ 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  all  these  founders  and  first  builders- 
up  of  the  regular  drama  in  England  were,  nearly  if  not  absolutely 
without  an  exception,  classical  scholars  and  men  who  had  received 
a  university  education.  Nicholas  Udall  was  of  Corpus  Christi  Col- 
lege, Oxford ;  John  Still  (if  he  is  to  be  considered  the  author  of 
Gammer  Gurton's  Needle)  was  of  Christ's  Colleo-e,  Cambridoe  ; 
Sackvilh  was  educated  at  both  universities  ;  so  was  Gascoigne  ; 
Richard  Edwards  was  of  Corpus  Christi,  Oxford  ;  Marlow  was  of 
Benet  College,  Cambridge ;  Greene,  of  St.  John's,  Cambridge  ; 
Peele,  of  Christ's  Church,  Oxford  ;  Lyly,  of  Magdalen  College, 
and  Lodge  of  Trinity  College,  in  the  same  university.  Kvd  was 
also  probably  a  university  man,  though  we  know  nothing  of  his 
jn'ivate  histoiy.  To  the  training  received  by  these  writers  the 
drama  that  arose  among  us  after  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury may  be  considered  to  owe  not  only  its  form,  but  in  part  also 
its  spirit,  which  had  a  learned  and  classical  tinge  from  the  first, 
that  never  entirely  wore  out.  The  diction  of  the  works  of  all 
these  dramatists  betrays  their  scholarship  ;  and  they  have  left  upon 
the  language  of  our  higher  drama,  and  indeed  of  our  blank  verse 
in  general,  of  which  they  Avere  the  main  creators,  an  impress  of 
Latinity,  which,  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  our  vigorous  but  still 
homely  and  unsonorous  Gothic  speech  needed  to  fit  it  for  the 
requirements  of  that  species  of  composition.  Fortunately,  how- 
ever, the  greatest  and  most  influential  of  them  were  not  mere  men 
of  books  and  readers  of  Greek  and  Latin.  Greene  and  Peele  and 
INLarlow  all  spent  the  noon  of  their  days  (none  of  them  saw  any 
afternoon)  in  the  busiest  haunts  of  social  life,  sounding  in  their 
reckless  course  all  the  deptlis  of  human  experience,  and  drinking 
the  cup  of  passion,  and  also  of  suffering,  to  the  dregs.  And  of 
their  great  successors,  those  who  carried  the  drama  to  its  height 
among  us  in  the  next  age,  while  some  were  also  accomplished 
scholars,  all  were  men  of  the  world  —  men  who  knew  theii 
brother-men  by  an  actual  and  intimate  intercourse  with  them  in 
their  most  natural  and  open-hearted  moods,  and  over  a  remark- 
ably  extended    range  of  conditions.     We   know,  from    even   the 

'  Hist,  of  Dnim.  T\iet.  iii.  213.  —  See,  upon  this  subject,  the  IntroJuctory  Notic* 
to  As  Vou  J>ike  It  in  Knight's  Shakspere,  vol.  iii.  247-265. 


EARLY   ELIZABETHAN   PROSE.  495 

scanty  fragments  of  their  history  that  liave  come  down  to  ns,  tliat 
Shakspeare  and  Jonson  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  all  lived  much 
in  the  open  air  of  society,  and  mingled  with  all  ranks  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest ;  some  of  them,  indeed,  having  known  whai 
it  was  actually  to  belong  to  classes  very  far  removed  from  each 
other  at  different  periods  of  their  lives.  But  we  should  have  gath- 
ered, though  no  other  record  or  tradition  had  told  ns,  thai  they 
must  have  been  men  of  this  genuine  and  manifold  experience  from 
the  drama  alone  which  they  have  bequeathed  to  us,  —various,  rich, 
and  glowing  as  that  is,  even  as  life  itself. 


EARLIER   ELIZABETHAN   PROSE.  — LYLY;  SIDNEY;  SPENSER; 

NASH,   ETC. 

Before  leaving  the  earlier  part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  a  few 
of  the  more  remarkable  writers  in  prose  who  had  risen  into  notice 
before  the  year  1590  may  be  mentioned.  The  singular  affectation 
known  by  the  name  of  Euphuism  was,  like  some  other  celebrated 
absurdities,  the  invention  of  a  man  of  true  geniu^s,  —  John  Lyly, 
noticed  above  as  a  dramatist  and  poet,  —  the  first  part  of  whose 
prose  romance  of  Euphues  appeared  in  1578  or  1579.  "  Our 
nation,"  says  Sir  Henry  Blount,  in  the  preface  to  a  collection  of 
some  of  Lyly's  dramatic  pieces  which  he  published  in  1632,  "  are 
in  his  debt  for  a  new  English  which  he  taught  them.  Euphues 
and  his  England  ^  beo-an  first  that  language ;  all  our  ladies  were 
then  his  scholars  ;  and  that  beauty  in  court  which  could  not  parley 
Euphuism  —  that  is  to  say,  wlio  was  unable  to  converse  in  that 
pure  and  reformed  English,  which  he  had  formed  his  work  to  be 
the  standard  of —  was  as  little  regarded  as  she  which  now  there 
speaks  not  French."  Some  notion  of  this  "pure  and  reformed 
English  "  has  been  made  familiar  to  the  reader  of  our  day  by  the 
great  modern  pen  that  has  called  back  to  life  so  much  of  the  lt)ng- 
vanished  past,  though  the  discourse  of  Sir  Piercie  Shafton,  in  the 
Monastery,  is  rather  a  caricature  than  a  fair  sample  of  Euphuisin. 
Doubtless,  it  often  became  a  purely  silly  and  pitiable  affair  in  the 

1  This  is  the  title  of  the  second  part  of  the  Euphues,  pubhshed  in  1581.  The 
first  part  is  entitled  Euphues,  the  .\natomy  of  Wit. 


496  ENGLISH  litp:rature  and  language. 

mouths  of  the  courtiers,  male  and  female  ;  but  in  Lyly's  own  w  rit- 
ings,  and  in  those  of  his  lettered  imitators,  of  whom  he  had  several, 
and  some  of  no  common  talent,  it  was  only  fantastic  and  extrava- 
gant, and  opposed  to  truth,  nature,  good  sense,  and  manliness. 
Pedantic  and  far-fetched  allusion,  elaborate  indu'ectness,  a  cloying 
smoothness  and  drowsy  monotony  of  diction,  alliteration,  punning, 
and  other  such  puerilities,  —  these  are  the  main  ingredients  of 
Euphuism  ;  wdiich  do  not,  however,  exclude  a  good  deal  of  wit, 
fancy,  and  prettiness,  occasionally,  both  in  the  expression  and  the 
tliought.  Although  Lyly,  in  his  verse  as  well  as  in  his  prose,  is 
always  artificial  to  excess,  his  ingenuity  and  finished  elegance  are 
frequently  very  captivating.  Perhaps,  indeed,  our  language  is, 
after  all,  indebted  to  this  writer  and  his  Euphuism  for  not  a  .little 
of  its  present  euphony.  From  the  strictures  Shakspeare,  in  Love's 
Labours  Lost,  makes  Holofernes  pass  on  the  mode  of  speaking  of 
liis  Euphuist,  Don  Adriano  de  Armado,  —  "a  man  of  fire-new 
words,  fashion's  own  knight  —  that  hath  a  mint  of  phrases  in  his 
brain  —  one  Avhom  the  music  of  his  own  vain  tongue  doth  ravish 
like  enchanting  harmony,"  —  it  should  almost  seem  that  the  now 
universally  adopted  pronunciation  of  many  of  our  words  w^as  first 
introduced  by  such  persons  at  this  refining  "  child  of  fancy  "  :  — 
"  I  abhor  such  fanatical  fimtasms,  such  insociable  and  point-device 
companions  ;  such  rackers  of  orthography  as  to  speak  dout^  fine, 
when  he  should  say  doubt ;  det,  when  he  should  pronounce  debt^ 
c?,  e,  ^,  t:  not  d,  e,  t:  he  clepeth  a  calf,  cmtf ;  half,  hauf;  neigh- 
bour vocatur  nebour;  neigh,  abbreviated  ne;  this  is  abhominable 
(which  he  would  call  abominable')  :  it  insinuatet'h  me  of  insanie." 
Here,  however,  the  all-seeing  poet  laughs  rather  at  the  pedantic 
schoolmaster  than  at  the  fantastic  knight ;  and  the  euphuistic  pro- 
nunciation which  he  makes  Holofernes  so  indignantly  criticise  was 
most  probably  his  own  and  that  of  the  generality  of  his  educated 
c  on  tempora  ri  e  s . 

A  renowned  English  prose  classic  of  this  age,  who  made  I-iyly's 
affectations  the  subject  of  his  ridicule  some  years  before  Shaks- 
peare, but  who  also  perhaps  was  not  blind  to  his  better  qualities, 
and  did  not  disdain  to  adopt  some  of  his  refomis  in  the  language, 
if  not  to  imitate  even  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  style,  was 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the  illustrious  author  of  the  Arcadia.  Sidney, 
who  was  born  in  1554,  does  not  appear  to  have  sent  anything  to  the 
press  during  his  short  and  brilliant  life,  which  was  terminated  by 


EUPHUISM.  497 

the  wound  he  received  at  the  battle  of  Zutphen,  in  1586  ;  but  he 
was  probably  well  known,  nevertheless,  at  least  as  a  writer  of 
poetry,  some  years  before  his  lamented  death.  Puttenham,  whose 
Art  of  English  Poesy,  at  whatever  time  it  may  have  been  written, 
was  published  before  any  work  of  Sidney's  had  been  printed,  so 
far  as  can  now  be  discovered,  mentions  him  as  one  of  the  best  and 
most  famous  writers  of  the  age  "  for  eclogue  and  pastoral  poesy."' 
The  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Arcadia,  as  Sidney's  principal  work 
had  been  aifectionately  designated  by  himself,  in  compliment  to 
his  sister,  to  whom  it  was  inscribed,  —  the  "  fair,  and  good,  and 
learned  "  lady,  afterwards  celebrated  by  Ben  Jonson  as  "  the  sub- 
ject of  all  verse,"  —  was  not  given  to  the  world  even  in  part  till 
1590,  nor  completely  till  1593.  His  collection  of  sonnets  and 
songs  entitled  Astro])hel  and  Stella,  first  appeared  in  1591,  and  his 
other  most  celebrated  piece  in  prose,  The  Defeikce  of  Poesy,  in 
1595.  The  production  in  which  he  satirizes  the  affectation  and 
pedantry  of  the  modern  corrupters  of  the  vernacular  tongue  is  a 
sort  of  masque,  supposed  to  pass  before  Queen  Elizabeth  in  Wan- 
stead  garden,  in  which,  among  other  characters,  a  village  school- 
master, called  Rombus,  appears,  and  declaims  in  a  jargon  not  unlike 
that  of  Shakspeare's  Holofernes.  Sidney's  own  prose  is  the  most 
flowing  and  poetical  that  had  yet  been  written  in  English  ;  but  its 
graces  are  rather  those  of  artful  elaboration  than  of  a  vivid  natural 
expressiveness.  The  thought,  in  fact,  is  generally  more  poetical 
than  the  language  ;  it  is  a  spirit  of  poetry  encased  in  a  rhetorical 
form.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  conceits  into  which  it  frequently 
runs,  —  and  which,  after  all,  are  mostly  rather  the  frolics  of  a  nim- 
ble wit,  somewhat  too  solicitous  of  display,  than  the  sickly  perversi- 
ties of  a  coxcombical  or  effeminate  taste,  —  and,  notwithstanding 
also  some  want  of  animation  and  variety,  Sidney's  is  a  Avonderful 
style,  always  flexible,  harmonious,  and  luminous,  and  on  fit  occa- 
sions rising  to  great  stateliness  and  splendor ;  while  a  breath  of 
beauty  and  noble  feeling  lives  in  and  exhales  from  the  whole  of  his 
great  work,  like  the  fragrance  from  a  garden  of  flowers. 

Among  the  most  active  occasional  writers  in  prose,  also,  about 
this  time  were  others  of  the  poets  and  dramatists  of  the  day,  besides 
Lodge,  who  has  been  already  mentioned  as  one  of  Lyly's  imitators. 
Another  of  his  productions,  besides  his  tale  of  Rosalynd,  which  has 
lately  attracted  much  attention,  is  a  Defence  of  Stage  Plays,  which 

VOL   I,  63 


498  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

he  piil)lisho(l,  probably  in  1579,  in  answer  to  Stephen  Gosson's 
School  of  Abuse,  and  of  which  only  two  copies  are  known  to  exist, 
both  wantintr  the  title-page.^  Greene  was  an  incessant  pamphleteer 
upon  all  sorts  of  subjects ;  the  list  of  his  prose  publications,  so  far 
as  they  are  known,  given  by  Mr.  Dyce  extends  to  between  thirty 
and  forty  articles,  the  earliest  being  dated  1584,  or  eight  years 
before  his  death.  Morality,  fiction,  satire,  blackguardism,  are  all 
minified  together  in  the  stream  that  thus  appears  to  have  flowed 
without  pause  from  his  ready  pen.  "  In  a  night  and  a  day,"  says 
his  friend  Nash,  "  would  he  have  yarked  up  a  pamphlet  as  well  as 
in  seven  years  ;  and  glad  was  that  printer  that  might  be  so  blest  to 
pay  him  dear  for  the  very  dregs  of  his  Avit."  ^  His  wit,  indeed,  often 
enough  appears  to  have  run  to  the  dregs,  nor  is  it  very  sparkling 
at  the  best ;  but  Gi-eene's  prose,  though  not  in  general  very  ani- 
mated, is  more  concise  and  perspicuous  than  his  habits  of  composi- 
tion mio;lit  lead  us  to  expect.  He  has  generally  written  from  a 
well-informed  or  full  mind,  and  the  matter  is  interesting  even  when 
there  is  no  particular  attraction  in  the  manner.  Among  his  most 
curious  pamphlets  are  his  several  tracts  on  the  rogueries  of  London, 
which  he  describes  under  the  name  of  Coney-catching,  —  a  favorite 
subject  also  with  other  popular  -writers  of  that  day.  But  the  most 
remarkable  of  all  Greene's  contributions  to  our  literature  are  his 
various  publications  which  either  directly  relate  or  are  understood 
to  shadow  forth  the  history  of  his  own  wild  and  unhappy  life  —  his 
tale  entitled  Never  too  Late  ;  or,  A  Powder  of  Experience,  1590  ; 
the  second  part  entitled  Francesco's  Fortunes,  the  same  year  ;  his 
Groatsworth  of  Wit,  bought  with  a  Million  of  Repentance,  and 
The  Re])entance  of  Robert  Greene,  Master  of  Arts,  which  both 
a])peared,  after  his  deatli,  in  1592.  Greene,  as  well  as  Lodge,  we 
may  remark,  is  to  be  reckoned  among  the  Euphuists  ;  a  tale  which  he 
published  in  1587,  and  which  was  no  less  than  five  times  reprinted 
in   the   course  of  the  next  half   century,  is    entitled    Mcnaphon  ; 

1  Seo  Mr.  Collier's  Introduction  to  the  Shakespeare  Society's  editions  of  Gosson's 
School  of  Ahuse,  1841  ;  and  of  Northbrooke's  Treatise  against  Dicing,  Dancing, 
Plays,  and  Interludes,  1843.  See  also  his  History  of  Dramatic  Poetry,  ii.  277,  &c. 
Hy  far  the  amplest  and  most  satisfactory  account  that  has  been  given  of  Lodge  and 
his  productions  (nearly  twenty  of  which  are  enumerated  and  described)  will  be 
found  prefixed  to  a  reprint  of  his  Answer  to  Gosson,  and  other  two  of  his  very 
Tare  publications,  edited  for  the  Shakespeare  Society  by  Mr.  David  Laing,  8vo 
T.ond.  IH.",,",.  His  Rosalynd  is  included  in  Collier's  Shakespeare's  Library,  2  voU. 
8vo.  IMi]. 

'  Strange  News,  in  answer  to  Oal)riel  Harvey's  Four  Letters. 


GREENE ;  NASH.  49J> 

Camilla's  Alarum  to  slumbering  Euphues,  in  his  melancholy  cell 
at  Silexedra,  &c. ;  and  the  same  year  he  produced  Euphues  his 
Censure  to  Philantus  ;  wherein  is  presented  a  philosophical  combat 
between  Hector  and  Achilles,  &c.  But  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
persisted  in  this  flishion  of  style.  It  may  be  noticed  as  curiously 
illustrating  the  spirit  and  manner  of  our  fictitious  literature  at  this 
time,  that  in  his  Pandosto,  or,  History  of  Dorastus  and  Fawnia, 
Greene,  a  scholar,  and  a  Master  of  Arts  of  Cambridge,  does  not 
hesitate  to  make  Bohemia  an  island,  just  as  is  done  by  Shakspeare 
in  treating  the  same  story  in  his  Winter's  Tale.  The  critics  have 
been  accustomed  to  instance  this  as  one  of  the  evidences  of  Shaks- 
peare's  ignorance,  and  Ben  Jonson  is  recorded  to  have,  in  his  con- 
versation with  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  quoted  it  as  a  proof 
that  his  great  brother-dramatist  "  wanted  art,^  and  sometimes 
sense."  The  truth  is,  as  has  been  observed,^  such  deviations  from 
fact,  and  other  incongruities  of  the  same  character,  were  not 
minded,  or  attempted  to  be  avoided,  either  in  the  romantic  drama, 
or  in  the  legends  out  of  which  it  was  formed.  They  are  not  blun- 
ders, but  part  and  parcel  of  the  fiction.  The  making  Bohemia  an 
vsland  is  not  nearly  so  great  a  violation  of  geographical  truth  as 
other  things  in  the  same  play  are  of  all  the  proprieties  and  possi- 
»)ilities  of  chronology  and  history,  —  for  instance,  the  coexistence 
of  a  kingdom  of  Bohemia  at  all,  or  of  that  modern  barbaric  name, 
with  anything  so  entirely  belonging  to  the  old  classic  world  as  the 
Oracle  of  Delphi.  The  story  (though  no  earlier  record  of  it  has 
vet  been  discovered)  is  not  improbably  much  older  than  either 
Shakspeare  or  Greene  :  the  latter  no  doubt  expanded  and  adorned 
it,  and  mainly  gave  it  its  present  shape  ;  but  it  is  most  likely  that 
he  had  for  his  groundwork  some  rude  popular  legend  or  tradition, 
the  characteristic  middle  age  geography  and  chronology  of  which 
he  most  properly  did  not  disturb. 

But  the  most  brilliant  pamj)hleteer  of  this  age  was  Thomas  Nash. 
Nash  is  the  author  of  one  slight  dramatic  piece,  mostly  in  blank 
verse,  but  partly  in  prose,  and  having  also  some  lyrical  poetry  in- 
terspersed, called  Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament,  which  was 
exhibited  befoi'e  Queen  Elizabeth  at  Nonsuch  in  1592  ;  and  he  also 
assisted   Marlow  in    his   Tragedy   of  Dido,    Queen    of  Carthage, 

1  Yet  Jonson  has  elsewhere  expressly  commended  Shakspeare  for  his  art.     See 
ais  well  known  verses  prefixed  to  the  first  folio  edition  of  the  Plays. 
■^  See  Notice  on  the  Costume  of  tlie  Winter's  Tale  in  Kniy;ht's  Shakspcre,  vol.  It 


500  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

which,  ahhoiigli  not  printed  till  1594,  is  supposed  to  have  been 
written  before-  1590.  But  his  satiric  was  of  a  much  higher  ordei 
than  his  dramatic  talent.  There  never  perhaps  was  poured  forth 
such  a  rushing  and  roaring  torrent  of  wit,  ridicule,  and  invective, 
as  in  the  rapid  succession  of  pamphlets  which  he  published  in  the 
course  of  the  year  1589  against  the  Puritans  and  their  famous 
champion  (or  rather  knot  of  champions)  taking  the  name  of  Mar- 
tin Mar-Prelate ;  unless  in  those  in  which  he  began  two  years  after 
to  assail  poor  Gabriel  Harvey,  his  persecution  of  and  controversy 
with  whom  lasted  a  much  longer  time  —  till  indeed  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  (Whitgift)  interfered  in  1597  to  restore  the  peace 
of  the  realm  by  an  order  that  all  Harvey's  and  Nash's  books  should 
be  taken  wherever  they  might  be  found,  "  and  that  none  of  the 
said  books  be  ever  printed  hereafter."  Mr.  D'Israeli  has  made 
both  these  controversies  familiar  to  modern  readers  by  his  lively 
accounts  of  the  one  in  his  Quarrels,  of  the  other  in  his  Calamities, 
of  Authors ;  and  ample  specimens  of  the  criminations  and  recrim- 
inations hurled  at  one  another  by  Nash  and  Harvey  have  also  been 
given  by  Mr.  Dyce  in  the  Life  of  Greene  prefixed  to  his  edition  of 
that  writer's  dramatic  and  poetical  works.  Harvey  too  was  a  man 
of  eminent  talent ;  but  it  was  of  a  kind  very  different  from  that  of 
Nash.  Nash's  style  is  remarkable  for  its  airiness  and  facilit}^;  clear 
it  of  its  old  spelling,  and,  unless  it  be  for  a  few  words  and  idioms 
which  have  now  dropt  out  of  the  popular  speech,  it  has  quite  a 
modern  air.  This  may  show,  by  the  by,  that  the  language  has 
not  altered  so  much  since  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century 
as  the  ordinary  prose  of  that  day  would  lead  us  to  suppose  ;  the 
difference  is  rather  that  the  generality  of  writers  were  more 
pedantic  then  than  now,  and  sought,  in  a  way  that  is  no  longer  the 
fashion,  to  brocade  their  composition  with  what  were  called  ink- 
horn  terms,  and  outlandish  phrases  never  used  except  in  books. 
If  they  had  been  satisfied  to  write  as  they  spoke,  the  style  of  that 
day  (as  we  may  perceive  from  the  example  of  Nash)  would  have 
in  its  general  character  considerably  more  resembled  that  of  the 
present.  Gabriel  Harvey's  mode  of  writing  exhibits  all  the  pecu- 
liarities of  his  age  in  their  most  exaggerated  form.  He  was  a 
great  scholar  —  and  his  composition  is  inspired  by  the  very  genius 
of  pedantry  ;  full  of  matter,  full  often  of  good  sense,  not  unfre- 
:[uently  rising  to  a  tone  of  dignity,  and  even  eloquence,  but  always 
stiff,  artificial,   and  elaborately  unnatural  to  a  degree  which  was 


ENGLISH  HEXAMETER  VERSE.  501 

even  then  unusual.  We  may  conceive  what  sort  of  chance  such 
a  heavy-armed  combatant,  encumbered  and  oppressed  by  the  very 
weapons  he  carried,  would  have  in  a  war  of  wit  with  the  quick, 
elastic,  inexhaustible  Nash,  and  the  showering  jokes  and  sarcasms 
that  flashed  from  his  easy,  natural  pen.  Harvey,  too,  with  all  his 
merits,  was  both  vain  and  envious;  and  he  had  some  absurdities 
which  afforded  tempting  game  for  satire.  In  particular  he  plumed 
himself  on  having  reformed  the  barbarism  of  English  verse  by 
setting  the  example  of  modelling  it  after  the  Latin  hexameter 
"  If  I  never  deserve  any  better  remembrance,"  he  exclaims  in  one 
of  his  pamphlets,  "  let  me  be  epitaphed  the  inventor  of  the  Eng- 
lish hexameter !  "  Nash,  again,  profanely  characterizes  the  said 
hexameter  as  "  that  drunken,  staggering  kind  of  verse,  which  is  all 
up-hill  and  down-hill,  like  the  way  betwixt  Stamford  and  Beech- 
field,  and  goes  like  a  horse  plunging  through  the  mire  in  the  deep 
of  whiter  —  now  soused  up  to  the  saddle,  and  straight  aloft  on  his 
tiptoes  "  (in  these  last  words,  we  suppose,  exemplifying  the  thing 
he  describes  and  derides). 


ENGLISH   HEXAMETER  VERSE. 

Harvey,  however,  did  not  want  imitators  in  his  crotchet ;  and 
among  them  were  some  of  high  name.  He  boasts,  in  the  same 
place  where  he  claims  the  credit  of  the  invention,  of  being  able 
to  reckon  among  his  disciples,  not  only  "  learned  Mr.  Stanyhurst," 
—  that  is  Richard  Stanyhurst,  who  in  1583  produced  a  most  ex- 
traordinary pei-formance,  which  he  called  a  translation  of  the  First 
Four  Books  of  the  ^neid,  in  this  reformed  verse,'  but  "  excellent 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,"  who,  he  observes,  had  not  disdained  to  follow 
him  in  his  Arcadia  and  elsewhere.  This  is  stated  in  his  Four  Let- 
ters and  certain  Sonnets,  especially  touching  Robert  Greene,  1582.^ 
But  from  a  preceding  publication,  entitled  Three  Proper  and  Witty 
Familiar  Letters  lately  passed  between  two  University  Men,  touch- 
ing the  Earthquake  in  April  last,  and  our  English  Reformed  Ver- 

1  This  very  scarce  volume  was  reprinted,  under  the  care  of  Mr.  Maidment,  in 
tto.,  at  Edinburgh  in  1886. 
^  Reprinted  by  Sir  E.  Brydges  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Archaica,  1813. 


502  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND  LANGUAGE. 

sifying,  which  were   given  to  the  world  in  1580,^  we  learn  tha* 
Edmund  Spenser  too  seemed,  or  professed  himself,  for  a  short  time 
half  inclined  to  enlist  himself  among  the  practitioners  of  the  new 
method.     The  two  University  men  betAveen  whom  the  Letters  had 
passed  are  Spenser  (who  is  designated  Immerito)  and  Harvey,  with 
whom  he  had  become  intimate  at  Cambridge  (they  were  both  of 
Pembroke  Hall),  and  by  whom  he  is  supposed  to  have  been  intro- 
duced to  Sidney  a  short  time  before  this  correspondence  began. 
The  Letters  are  in  fact  five  in  number ;  the  original  three,  before 
the  pamphlet  was  published,  having  had  two  others  added  to  them, 
"  of  the  same   men's  writing,  both  touching  the  foresaid  artificial 
versifying  and  certain  other  particulars,  more  lately  delivered  unto 
the  printer."     The  publication  is  introduced  by  a  Preface  from  "  a 
Well-wilier  "  to  both  writers,  who  professes  to  have  come  by  the  let- 
ters at  fourth  or  fifth  hand,  through  a  friend,  ''  who  with  much 
entreaty  had  procured  the   copying   of   them   out  at  Immerito's 
hands."     He  had  not,  he  declares,  made  the  writers  privy  to  the 
publication.     The  merits  of  Harvey's  letters  in  particular  —  which 
form  indeed  the  principal  part  of  the  pamphlet,  and  to  which  the 
only  one    by  Spenser    originally  designed  to  be  given  is  merely 
introductory  —  are  trumpeted  forth  in  this  Preface  in  a  very  con- 
fident style  :  —  "  But  show  me  or  Immerito,"  exclaims  the  Well- 
wilier,  "  two  English  letters   in   print  in   all  points  equal  to  the 
other  two,  both  for  the  matter  itself  and  also  for  the  manner  of 
handling,  and  say  we  never  saw  good  English  letters  in  our  lives." 
"And  yet,"  he  adds,  "I  am  credibly  informed  by  the  foresaid  faith- 
ful and  honest  friend,  that  himself  [the  writer  of  the  said  two  let- 
ters] hath  written  many  of  the  same  stamp  both  to  courtiers  and 
others,  and  some  of  them  discoursing  upon  matters  of  great  weight 
and  importance,  wherein  he  is  said   to  be  fully  as  suflScient  and 
habile  as  in  those  scholai-ly  points  of  learning."     Nevertheless,  this 
well-wisher,  or  his  faithful   and  honest  friend,  was  strongly  sus- 
])ected  at  the   time  to  be  no  other  than  Harvey  himself.     Nash 
declares  in  one  of  his  pamj^hlets  that  the  compositor  by  Avhom  the 
Well-willer's  epistle,  or  Preface,  was  set  up,  swore  to  him  that  it 
came  under  Harvey's  own  hand  to  be  printed.     And  in  another 
place,  addressing   Harvey,  he  says,  "  You  were  young  in  years 
when  you  privately  wrote  the  letters  that  afterward  were  publicly 

•  Reprinterl  in  the  second  volume  of  Ancient  Critical  Essays  upon  English  Poeta 
»nd  Poesy,  edited  by  Joseph  Haslewood,  2  vols.  4to.  Lond.  1811-15. 


ENGLISH  HEXAMETER  VERSE.  50^ 

divulged  by  no  other  but  yourself.  Signior  Iinmerito  was  coun- 
terfeitly  brought  in  to  play  a  part  in  that  his  interlude  of  epistles. 
I  durst  on  my  credit  undertake  Spenser  was  in  no  way  privy  to 
the  committing  of  them  to  print.  Committing  I  will  call  it,  for  in 
my  opinion  G.  H.  should  not  have  reaped  so  much  discredit  by 
oeing  committed  to  Newgate,  as  by  committing  that  misbelieving 
prose  to  the  press."  Nash's  authority,  however,  is  none  of  the 
best ;  and  it  is  fair  to  add  that  Harvey  himself,  in  one  of  his  Four 
Letters  published  in  1592,  speaks  of  the  present  letters  as  having 
been  sent  to  the  press  either  by  some  malicious  enemy  or  some 
indiscreet  friend.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  he  designed  to 
conceal  himself  under  the  latter  description. 

But  to  return  to  what  Spenser  tells  us  of  his  studies  and  experi- 
ments in  English  hexameters  and  pentameters.  In  one  letter, 
written  from  Leicester  House,  Westminster,  in  October  1579,  he 
says  :  "  As  for  the  two  worthy  gentlemen,  Mr.  Sidney  and  Mr. 
Dyer  [afterwards  Sir  Edward  Dyer,  and  greatly  esteemed  as  a 
writer  of  verse  in  his  day],  they  have  me,  I  thank  them,  in  some 
use  and  familiarity,  of  whom  and  to  whom  what  speech  passeth  to 
your  credit  and  estimation  I  leave  yourself  to  conceive  ;  having 
always  so  well  conceived  of  my  unfeigned  affection  and  zeal 
towards  you.  And  now  they  have  proclaimed  in  their  apeLw-n-dyw 
a  general  surceasing  and  silence  of  bald  rhymers,  and  also  of  the 
very  best  too  ;  instead  whereof  they  have,  by  authority  of  theii 
whole  senate,  prescribed  certain  rules  and  laws  of  quantities  of 
English  syllables  for  English  verse  ;  having  had  thereof  already 
great  practice,  and  almost  drawn  me  into  their  faction  "  After- 
wards he  goes  farther  :  "  I  am  more  in  love,"  he  says,  "  with 
English  versifying  [that  was  the  name  by  which  Harvey  and  his 
friends  distinguished  the  new  invention]  than  with  rhyming ;  which 
I  should  have  done  [with  ?]  long  since  if  I  would  then  have  fol- 
lowed your  counsel."  And  he  concludes,  "  I  received  your  letter 
sent  me  the  last  week,  whereby  I  perceive  you  continue  your  old 
exercise  of  versifying  in  English  ;  which  glory  I  had  now  thought 
should  have  been  ours  at  London  and  the  court."  "  Trust  me," 
he  adds,  "  your  verses  I  like  passingly  well,  and  envy  your  hidden 
pains  in  this  kind,  or  rather  malign  and  grudge  at  yourself  that 
would  not  once  impart  so  much  to  me."  He  remarks,  however, 
that  Harvey  has  once  or  twice  made  a  breach  in  the  rules  laid 
lown  for  this  new  mode  of  versifying  by  Master  Drant,  that  is, 


504  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Thomas  Drant,  chiefly  known  as  the  author  of  two  collections  of 
Latin  poetry,  entitled  Sylva  and  Poemata  Varia,  but  also  the 
author  of  some  verse  translations  from  the  Latin  and  Greek. 
"  You  shall  see,"  says  Spenser  in  conclusion,  "  when-  we  meet  in 
London  (and  when  it  shall  be,  certify  us),  how  fast  I  have  followed 
after  you  in  that  course:  beware  lest  in  time  I  overtake  you." 
And,  as  a  sample  of  what  he  had  been  doing,  he  subjoins  a  few 
English  Iambics. 

Six  months  later  we  find  him  still  occupied  with  the  new  method. 
Writing  to  Harvey  again  in  the  beginning  of  April  1580,  he  says  : 
"  I  like  your  late  English  hexameters  so  exceedingly  well  that  I 
also  enure  my  pen  sometimes  in  that  kind ;  which  I  find,  indeed, 
as  I  have  often  heard  you  defend  in  word,  neither  so  hard  nor  so 
harsh  [but]  that  it  will  easily  and  fairly  yield  itself  to  our  mother- 
toncrue."  Yet  from  what  follows  it  almost  looks  as  if  he  Avere  all 
the  while  making  sport  of  his  solemn  friend  and  his  preposterous 
invention.  "  The  only  or  chiefest  hardness  which  seemeth,"  he 
goes  on,  "  is  in  the  accent ;  which  sometime  gapeth,  and,  as  it 
were,  yawneth,  ill-favouredly,  coming  short  of  that  it  should,  and 
sometime  exceeding  the  measure  of  the  number;  as  in  Carpenter^ 
the  middle  syllable  being  used  short  in  speech,  Avhen  it  shall  be 
read  long  in  verse  seemeth  like  a  lame  gosling,  that  draweth  one 
leg  after  her  ;  and  Heaven^  being  used  short  as  one  syllable,  wdien 
it  is  in  verse  stretched  out  with  a  diastole  is  like  a  lame  dog  that 
holds  up  one  leg."  Nash's  ridicule  is  hardly  so  unmerciful  as  this. 
Spenser,  however,  adds,  by  way  of  consolation,  "  But  it  is  to  be  won 
with  custom,  and  rough  words  must  be  subdued  with  use."  After- 
wards he  sets  down  four  lines  of  English  Elegiac  verse  —  asking, 
"  Seem  they  comparable  to  those  two  which  I  translated  y6u 
extempore  in  bed  the  last  time  we  lay  together  in  Westmin- 
ster ?  — 

That  which  I  eat  did  I  joy,  and  that  which  I  greedily  gorged  ; 
As  for  those  many  goodly  matters  left  I  for  others." 

This  can  hardly  have  been  written,  or  even,  one  woidd  think,  have 
been  intended  to  be  taken,  seriously.  "  I  would  heartily  wish," 
111'  concludes,  "  you  would  either  send  me  the  rules  and  precepts 
of  art  which  you  observe  in  quantities,  or  else  follow  mine,  that 
M.  Philip  Sidney  gave  me,  being  the  very  same  which  M.  Drant 
ievised,  but  enlarged  with  M.  Sidney's  own  judgment,  and  aug- 


ENGLISH    HEXAMETER  VERSE.  505 

niented  with  my  observations  ;  that  we  might  botli  agree  and 
accord  in  one,  lest  we  overthrow  one  another,  and  be  overthrown 
of  the  rest." 

From  this  it  would  appear  that,  after  all,  Drant  (whose  era  was 
between  1560  and  1570)  was,  in  this  matter  of  English  hexame- 
ters, before  Harvey.  But,  indeed,  long  before  this  Sir  Thomas 
More  had  amused  himself  with  the  same  fancy.  And  the  attempt 
to  mould  English  verse  into  the  form  of  Latin  (which  long  after- 
wards exercised  the  ingenuity  of  Milton,  and  which  has  been 
revived  in  our  own  day)  continued  to  engage  some  attention  down 
to  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  1602  Avas  published  a 
small  pamphlet  entitled  Observations  on  the  Art  of  English  Poesy, 
by  Thomas  Campion :  wherein  it  is  demonstratively  proved,  and 
by  example  confirmed,  that  the  English  toong  will  receive  eight 
several  kinds  of  numbers,  proper  to  itself,  which  are  all  in  this 
book  set  forth,  and  were  never  before  this  time  by  any  man  at- 
tempted. Thomas  Campion,  or  Champion,  was  a  poet  of  some 
celebrity  in  his  day  ;  his  name  occurs,  along  with  those  of  Spenser 
and  Shakspeare  (the  others  are  Sidiiey,  John  Owen,  Daniel,  Hugh 
Holland,  Ben  Jonson,  Drayton,  Chapman,  and  Marston),  in  Cam- 
den's enumeration  in  his  Remains  concei-ning  Britain  (first  pub- 
lished in  1604)  of  the  most  pregnant  poetical  wits  tlien  flourishing. 
His  tract  was  answered  the  next  year  by  his  brother-poet,  Samuel 
Daniel,  in  A  Defence  of  Ryme  against  a  pamphlet  entitled  Obser- 
vations in  the  Art  of  English  Poesy :  wherein  is  demonstratively 
proved  that  Ryme  is  the  fittest  hai'mony  of  words  that  comports 
with  our  language.^  This  reply  appears  to  have  terminated  the 
controversy  for  the  present ;  and,  indeed,  altiiough  Milton  in  a 
later  day,  in  addition  to  imitating,  or  attempting  to  imitate,  the 
metres  of  Horace,  also,  like  Campion,  denoimccd  the  Gothic  bar- 
barism and  bondage  of  rhyme,  it  never  was  agaiii  seriously  pro- 
posed, we  believe,  to  reform  our  poetry  by  the  entire  abolition  of 
the  natural  ])rosod}  of  the  language,  and  the  substitution  of  the 
Greek  or  Latin. 

'  Both  Campion's  Observations  and  Daniel's  Defence  are  reprinted  in  the  eecond 
rolume  of  the  Ancient  Critical  Essays,  edited  by  Haslewood. 

VOL.  I.  64 


i06  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  AND   LANGUAGE. 


EDMUND    SPENSER. 

If  Harvey  had  seriously  infected  Spenser  with  the  madness  of 
his  hexameters  and  pentameters,  the  reformed  versifying  might 
have  been  brought  for  a  short  time  into  more  credit,  although 
Spenser's  actual  performances  in  it,  as  has  been  remarked,  are  bad 
enouoh  to  countenance  even  those  of  his  friend  the  inventor.  But, 
besides  that  to  change,  as  this  system  appears  to  have  required, 
the  entire  pronunciation  and  musical  character  of  a  language  is  as 
much  beyond  the  power  of  any  writer,  or  host  of  writers,  as  to 
change  the  direction  of  the  winds  (the  two  cases  being  alike  gov- 
erned by  laws  of  nature  above  human  control),  Spenser  Ava^  of 
all  writers  the  one  least  likely  to  be  permanently  enthralled  by  the 
pursuit  of  such  an  absurdity.  Of  all  our  great  poets  he  is  the  one 
whose  natural  tastes  were  mest  opposed  to  such  outlandish  innova- 
tions upon  and  harsh  perversions  of  his  native  tongue  —  whose 
genius  was  essentially  the  most  musical,  the  most  English,  and  the 
most  reverential  of  antiquity. 

Edmund  Spenser  has  been  supposed  to  have  come  before  the 
world  as  a  poet  so  early  as  the  year  1569,  when  some  sonnets 
translated  from  Petrarch,  which  long  afterwards  were  reprinted 
with  his  name,  appeared  in  Vander  Noodt's  Theatre  of  World- 
lings :  on  the  20th  of  May  in  that  year  he  was  entered  a  sizer  of 
Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge  ;  and  in  that  same  year,  also,  an  entry 
in  the  Books  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Queen's  Chamber  records 
that  there  was  "  paid  upon  a  bill  signed  by  Mr.  Secretary,  dated 
at  Windsor  18°  Octobris,  to  Edmund  Spenser,  that  brought  let- 
ters to  the  Queen's  Majesty  from  Sir  Henry  Norris,  Knight,  her 
Majesty's  ambassador  in  France,  being  at  Thouars  in  the  said 
realm,  for  his  charges  the  sum  of  6Z.  13s.  4(7.,  over  and  besides  9/. 
prested  to  him  by  Sir  Henry  Norris."  ^  It  has  been  supposed  that 
this  entry  refers  to  the  poet.  The  date  1610,  given  as  that  of  the 
year  of  his  birth  upon  his  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
erected  long  after  his  death,  is  out  of  the  question  ;  but  the  above- 
mentioned  facts  make  it  probable  that  he  was  born  some  years 
before  155-],  the  date  commonly  assigned. 

He   has   himself  commemorated   the   place   of  his  birth:    "At 

1  First  publislucl  in  Mr.  Cunningham's  Introduction  (p.  xxx.)  to  liis  Extracts 
from  tlic  Accounts  of  tlio  Kevels  at  Court,  printed  for  the  Shakespeare  Society,  8vo. 
Lond.  1«42. 


SPENSER.  507 

length,"  he  says  in  his  Prothalamion,  or  poem  on  the  niarnagea 
of  the  two  daughters  of  the  Earl  of  Worcester,  — 

At  length  they  all  to  merry  London  came, 
To  merry  London,  my  most  kindly  nurse, 
That  to  me  gave  this  life's  first  native  source, 
Though  from  another  place  I  take  my  name. 
An  house  of  ancient  fame. 

It  is  commonly  said,  on  the  authority  of  Oldys,  that  he  was  bom 
in  East  Smithiield  by  the  Tower.  It  appears  from  the  register  of 
the  University  that  he  took  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  in  1572, 
and  that  of  Master  of  Arts  in  1576.  On  leaving  Cambridge  he 
retired  for  some  time  to  the  north  of  England.  Here  he  a])peara 
to  have  written  the  greater  part  of  his  Shepherd's  Calendar,  which, 
having  previously  come  up  to  London,  he  published  in  1579.  And 
he  had  already,  as  we  learn  from  his  correspondence  with  Harvey, 
finished  two  works  entitled  his  Dreams  and  Dying  Pelican,  of 
which  nothing  is  now  known,  unless  the  former  (as  has  been  con- 
jectured) be  the  same  afterwards  published  under  the  titles  of  The 
Visions  of  Petrarch,  The  Visions  of  Bellay,  and  Visions  of  the 
World's  Vanity  ;  and  he  had  begun  his  Fairy  Queen,  as  well  as 
at  least  designed,  and  perhaps  made  some  progress  in,  a  poem  in 
Harvey's  new  mode  of  versifying,  to  be  entitled  Epithalamion 
Thamesis  ;  "  which  book,"  Jie  says,  "■  I  dare  undertake  will  be 
profitable  for  the  knowledge,  and  new  for  the  invention  and  man- 
ner of  handling."  The  subject  was  to  be  treated  in  the  same 
manner  as  it  is  in  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  Fairy  Queen.  He  also 
speaks  of  another  work  which  he  calls  his  Stemmata  Dudleiana, 
probably  a  poem  in  honor  of  the  family  of  his  patron,  the  Earl  of 
Leicester,  uncle  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  of  which  he  says  that  it 
must  not  lightly  be  sent  abroad  without  more  advisement,  —  adding, 
however,  "  But  trust  me,  though  I  never  do  well,  yet  in  my  own 
fancy  I  never  did  better."  And  Harvey  congratulates  him  on 
nine  Comedies,  which  he  had  either  written,  or  was  engaged  with : 
—  "I  am  void  of  all  judgment  if  your  Nine  Comedies,  whereunto, 
in  imitation  of  Herodotus,  you  give  the  names  of  the  Nine  Muses, 
come  not  as  near  Ariosto's  Comedies,  either  for  the  fineness  of 
plausible  elocution  or  the  rareness  of  poetical,  as  the  Fairy  Queen 
doth  to  his  Orlando."  But  he  published  nothing  more  for  somw 
years. 


508  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

In  his  Letter  to  Harvey  written  from  Leicester  House  in  Octo- 
ber, 1579,  and  more  especially  in  a  long  Latin  valedictory  poeni 
included  in  it,  he  speaks  of  being  immediately  about  to  proceed 
across  the  seas  in  the  service  of  Leicester,  to  France,  as  it  would 
appear,  if  not  farther.  "  I  go  thither,"  he  writes,  "  as  sent  by  him, 
and  maintained  (most-what)  of  him ;  and  there  am  to  employ  my 
time,  my  body,  my  mind,  in  his  honour's  service."  But  whether 
he  actually  went  upon  this  mission  is  unknown.  Li  the  beginning 
of  August,  1580,  on  the  appointment  of  Arthur  Lord  Grey  of 
Wilton  as  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland,  Spenser  accompanied  his  lord- 
ship to  that  country  as  his  secretary ;  in  March,  the  year  following, 
he  was  appointed  to  the  office  of  Clerk  in  the  Irish  Court  of  Chan- 
cery; but  on  Lord  Grey  being  recalled  in  1582,  Spenser  probably 
returned  with  him  to  England.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  he 
may  have  been  the  person  mentioned  in  a  letter  to  Queen  Elizabeth 
from  James  VI.  of  Scotland,  dated  at  St.  AndreAvs,  the  2d  of 
July,  1583-  (the  original  of  which  is  preserved  among  the  Cotton 
MSS.),  where  James  says  in  the  postscript,  "  Madam,  I  have 
stayed  Maister  Spenser  upon  the  letter  quilk  is  written  with  my 
awin  hand,  quilk  sail  be  ready  within  twa  days."  ^ 

Of  how  he  was  employed  for  the  next  three  or  four  years  nothing 
is  known  ;  but  in  1586  he  obtained  from  the  crown  a  grant  of  above 
3000  acres  of  forfeited  lands  in  Ireland :  the  grant  is  dated  the 
27th  of  July,  and,  if  it  was  procured,  as  is  not  improbable,  through 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  it  was  the  last  kindness  of  that  friend  and  pa- 
tron, whose  death  took  place  in  October  of  this  year.  Spenser 
proceeded  to  Ireland  to  take  possession  of  his  estate,  Avhich  was  a 
portion  of  the  former  domain  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond  in  the  county 
of  Cork  ;  and  here  he  remained,  residing  in  what  had  been  the 
earl's  castle  of  Kilcolman,  till  he  returned  to  England  in  1590,  and 
pubhshed  at  London,  in  4to.,  the  first  three  Books  of  his  Fairy 
Queen.  If  he  had  published  anything  else  since  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar  appeared  eleven  years  before,  it  could  only  have  been  a 
poem  of  between  four  and  five  hundred  lines,  entitled  Muiopotmos, 
or  the  Fate  of  the  Butterfly,  which  he  dedicated  to  the  Lady 
Carey.  He  has  himself  related,  in  his  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home 
Airain,  how  he  had  been  visited  in  his  exile  bv  the  Shepherd  of 

1  See  Note  by  Mr.  David  Laing  on  p.  V2  of  his  edition  of  Ben  Jonson's  Conver- 
3ations  with  William  Drummond,  printed  for  the  Shakespeare  Society.  8vo.  Lond. 
1842. 


SPENSER.  509 

the  Ocean,  by  which  designation  he  means  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
and  persuaded  by  him  to  make  this  visit  to  England  for  the  purpose 
of  having  his  poem  printed.  Raleigh  hitroduced  him  to  Elizabeth, 
to  whom  the  Fairy  Queen  was  dedicated,  and  who  in  February, 
1591,  bestowed  on  the  author  a  pension  of  50Z.  This  great  work 
immediately  raised  Spenser  to  such  celebrity,  that  the  publishei: 
hastened  to  collect  whatever  of  his  other  poems  he  could  find,  and, 
under  the  general  title  of  Complaints ;  Containing  sundry  small 
poems  of  the  World's  Vanity ;  printed  together,  in  a  4to.  volume, 
The  Ruins  of  Time,  The  Tears  of  the  Muses,  Virgil's  Gnat, 
Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,  The  Ruins  of  Rome  (from  the  French 
of  Bellay),  Muiopotmos  (which  is  stated  to  be  the  only  one  of 
the  pieces  that  had  previously  appeared),  and  The  Visions  of 
Petrarch,  &c.,  already  mentioned.  Many  more,  it  is  declared, 
which  the  aufhor  had  written  in  former  years  were  not  to  be  found. 
Spenser  appears  to  have  remained  in  England  till  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1592 :  his  Daphnaida,  an  elegy  on  the  death  of  Doug- 
las Howard,  daughter  of  Lord  Howard,  and  wife  of  Arthur  Gorges, 
Esq.,  is  dedicated  to  the  Marchioness  of  Northampton  in  an  ad- 
dress dated  the  1st  of  January  in  that  year,  and  it  was  published 
soon  after.  He  then  returned  to  Ireland,  and,  probably  in  the 
course  of  1592  and  1593,  there  composed  the  series  of  eighty-eight 
sonnets,  in  winch  he  relates  his  courtship  of  the  lady  whom  he  at 
last  married,^  celebrating  the  event  by  a  splendid  Epithalamion. 
But  it  appears  from  the  eightieth  sonnet  that  he  had  already  fin- 
ished six  Books  of  his  Fairy  Queen.  His  next  publication  was 
another  4to.  volume  which  appeared  in  1595,  containing  his  Colin 
Clout's  Come  Home  Again,  the  'dedication  of  which  to  Raleigh  is 
dated  "  From  my  house  at  Kilcolman,  December  the  27th,  1591," 
no  doubt  a  misprint  for  1594  ;  and  also  his  Astrophel,  an  elegy 
upon  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  dedicated  to  his  widow,  now  the  Countess 
of  Essex ;  together  with  The  Mourning  Muse  of  Thestylis,  another 
poem  on  the  same  subject.  The  same  year  appeared,  in  8vo.,  his 
sonnets,  under  the  title  of  Amoretti,  accompanied  by  the  Epithala- 
mion. In  1596  he  paid  another  visit  to  England,  bringing  with 
him  the  Fourth,  Fifth,  and  Sixth  Books  of  his  Fairy  Queen,  which 
were  published,  along  with  a  new  edition  of  the  preceding  three 

1  She  was  not,  as  has  been  commonly  assumed,  a  peasant  girl,  but  evidently  a 
gentlewoman,  a  person  of  the  same  social  position  with  Spenser  himself.  I  have 
shown  this,  for  the  first  time,  in  Spenser  and  his  Poetry,  vol.  iii.  pp.  223,  &c. 


olO  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

books,  in  4to.,  at  London  in  that  year.  In  the  latter  part  of  the 
same  year  appeared,  in  a  volume  of  the  same  form,  a  reprint  of 
his  Daplmaida,  together  Avith  his  Protlmlamion,  or  spousal  verse  on 
the  marriao;es  of  the  Ladies  Elizabeth  and  Catharine  Somerset, 
and  his  Four  Hymns  in  honour  of  Love,  of  Beauty,  of  Heavenly 
Love,  and  of  Heavenly  Beauty,  dedicated  to  the  Countesses  of 
Cumberland  and  Warwick,  in  an  address  dated  Greenwich,  the  1st 
of  September,  1596.  The  first  two  of  these  Hymns  he  states  had 
been  composed  in  the  greener  times  of  his  youth  ;  and,  although 
he  had  been  moved  by  one  of  the  two  ladies  to  call  in  the  same,  as 
"  having  too  much  pleased  those  of  like  age  and  disposition,  which, 
being  too  vehemently  carried  with  that  kind  of  affection,  do  rather 
suck  out  poison  to  their  strong  passion  than  honey  to  their  honest 
delight,"  he  "  had  been  unable  so  to  do,  by  reason  that  many  copies 
thereof  were  formerly  scattered  abroad."  At  this  time  it  was  still 
common  for  literary  compositions  of  all  kinds  to  be  extensively  cir- 
culated in  manuscript,  as  used  to  be  the  mode  of  publication  before 
the  invention  of  printing.  These  Hymns  were  the  last  of  his  pro- 
ductions that  he  sent  to  the  press.  It  was  during  this  visit  to 
England  that  he  presented  to  Elizabeth,  and  probably  wrote,  his 
prose  treatise  entitled  A  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,  written 
dialogue-wise  between  Eudoxus  and  Irenaens ;  but  that  Avork  re- 
mained unprinted,  till  it  was  published  at  Dubhn  by  Sir  James 
Ware  in  1633. 

Spenser  returned  to  Ireland  probably  early  in  1597  ;  and  was  the 
next  year  recommended  by  the  Queen  to  be  sheriff  of  Cork  ;  but, 
soon  after  the  breaking  out  of  Tyrone's  rebellion  in  October,  1598, 
his  house  of  Kilcohnan  was  attacked  and  burned  by  the  rebels, 
and,  one  chikl  having  perished  in  the  flames,  it  was  with  difficulty 
that  he  made  his  escape  with  his  wife  and  two  sons.  He  arrived 
in  England  in  a  state  of  destitution  ;  but  it  seems  unlikely  that, 
with  his  talents  and  great  reputation,  his  poweriul  friends,  his  pen- 
sion, and  the  rights  he  still  retained,  although  deprived  of  the 
enjoyment  of  his  Irish  property  for  the  moment,  he  could  have 
been  left  to  perish,  as  has  been  commonly  said,  of  want :  the  break- 
ing up  of  his  constitution  was  a  natural  consequence  of  the  suffei*- 
ings  he  had  lately  gone  through.  All  that  we  know,  however,  is 
that,  after  having  been  ill  for  some  time,  he  died  at  an  inn  in  King 
Street,  Westminster,  on  the  l()th  of  January,  1599.  Two  Cantos, 
iitidonijtcdiv  genuine,  of  a  subsequent   Book  of  the  Fuiiy  (^uccn. 


SPENSER.  511 

and  two  stanzas  of  a  third  Canto,  entitled  Of  Mutability,  and 
forming  part  of  the  Legend  of  Constancy,  were  pubhshed  in  an 
edition  of  liis  collected  works,  in  a  folio  volume,  in  1609 ;  and  it 
may  be  doubted  if  much  more  of  the  poem  was  ever  written.  As 
for  the  poem  called  Britain's  Ida,  in  six  short  Cantos,  which  also 
appeared  in  this  volume,  it  is  certainly  not  by  Spenser.  Besides 
the  works  that  have  been  enumerated,  however,  the  following  com- 
positions by  Spenser,  now  all  lost,  are  mentioned  by  himself  or  hia 
friends  :  —  His  Pageants,  The  Canticles  Paraphrased,  a  poetical 
version  of  Ecclesiastes,  another  of  the  Seven  Penitential  Psalms, 
The  Hours  of  our  Lord,  The  Sacrifice  of  a  Sinner,  Purgatory,  A 
Se'ennight's  Slumber,  The  Court  of  Cupid,  and  The  Hell  of  Lovers. 
He  is  also  said  to  have  written  a  treatise  in  prose  called  The  Eng- 
lish Poet. 

The  most  remarkable  of  Spenser's  poems  written  before  his 
great  work,  The  Fairy  Queen,  are  his  Shepherd's  Calendar  and 
his  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale.  Both  of  these  pieces  are  full  of  the 
spirit  of  poetry,  and  his  genius  displays  itself  in  each  in  a  variety 
of  styles. 

The  Shepherd's  Calendar,  though  consisting  of  twelve  distinct 
poems  denominated  Eclogues,  is  less  of  a  pastoral,  in  the  ordinary 
acceptation,  than  it  is  of  a  piece  of  polemical  or  party  divinity. 
Spenser's  shepherds  are,  for  the  most  part,  pastors  of  the  church, 
or  clergymen,  with  only  pious  parishioners  for  sheep.  One  is  a 
good  shepherd,  such  as  Algrind,  that  is,  the  puritanical  archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  Grindall.  Another,  represented  in  a  much  less 
favorable  light,  is  Morell,  that  is,  his  famous  antagonist  Elmore,  or 
Aylmer,  bishop  of  London.  Spenser's  religious  character  and 
opinions  make  a  curious  subject,  which  has  not  received  much 
attention  from  his  biographers.  His  connection  Avith  Sidney  and 
Leicester,  and  afterwards  with  Essex,  made  him,  no  doubt,  bo  re- 
garded throughout  his  life  as  belonging  to  the  puritanical  party,  but 
only  to  the  more  moderate  section  of  it,  which,  although  not  unwill- 
ing to  encourage  a  little  gnimbling  at  some  things  in  the  conduct 
of  the  dominant  section  of  the  hierarchy,  and  even  ])rofessing  to 
see  much  reason  in  the  objections  made  to  certain  outworks  or  ap- 
pendages of  the  established  system,  stood  still  or  drew  back  as  soon 
as  the  opposition  to  the  church  became  really  a  Avar  of  principles. 
Spenser's  puritanism  seems  almost  as  unnatural  as  Ins  hexame- 
ters and  pentameters.     It  was  j)robably,  for  the  greater  part,  tlie 


bl2  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

product  of  circumstances,  rather  than  of  conviction  or  any  strong 
feeling,  even  while  it  lasted ;  and  it  never  appears  afterwards  in 
such  prominence  as  in  his  Shepherd's  Calendar,  the  first  work  that 
he  published.  It  has  even  been  asserted  that  his  Blatant  Beast,  in 
the  Sixth  Book  of  the  Fairy  Queen,  is  meant  for  a  personification 
of  Puritanism.  At  any  rate,  it  is  evident  that,  in  his  later  years, 
his  Christianity  had  taken  the  form  rather  of  Platonism  than  of 
Puritanism.  The  puritanical  spirit  of  some  parts  of  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar,  however,  probably  contributed  to  the  popularity  which 
the  poem  long  retained.  It  was  reprinted  four  times  dui'ing  the 
author's  lifetime,  in  1581,  1586,  1591,  and  1597.  Yet  it  is  not 
only  a  very  unequal  composition,  but  is,  in  its  best  executed  or 
most  striking  parts,  far  below  the  height  to  which  Spenser  after- 
wards learned  to  rise.  We  may  gather  fi'om  it  that  one  thing 
which  had  helped  to  give  him  his  church-reforming  notions  had 
been  his  study  and  admiration  of  the  old  poetry  of  Chaucer  and 
the  Visions  of  Piers  Ploughman.  One  of  his  personages,  wdio,  in 
one  of  the  ^Eclogues,  discourses  much  in  the  style  of  the  principal 
figure  in  Langland's  poem,  is  called  Piers  ;  and  Chaucer  is  not  only 
in  various  passages  affectionately  commemorated  under  the  name 
of  Tityrus,  but  several  of  the  JEclogues  are  written  in  a  peculiar 
versification  which  appears  to  be  intended  as  an  imitation  of  that 
of  Chaucer's  poetry.  So  far  as  Spenser,  at  this  time  of  his  life, 
can  be  accounted  any  authority  in  such  a  matter,  it  may  be  admit- 
ted that  he  seems  to  have  regarded  the  verse  of  his  great  prede- 
cessor as  only  accentually,  not  syllabically,  regular ;  but  it  is  still 
more  evident,  at  the  same  time,  that  these  intended  imitations  of 
Chaucer  in  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  do  not  really  give  a  true 
representation  of  his  prosody,  according  to  any  theory  of  it  that 
may  be  adopted.  The  flow  of  the  verse  is  rather  that  of  the 
Visions  of  Piers  Ploughman,  only  without  the  regular  alliteration 
and  wath  the  addition  of  rhyme.  As  a  specimen  of  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar,  we  will  give,  from  the  second  ^Eclogue,  which  is  one  of 
those  composed  in  this  peculiar  measure,  the  Tale  of  the  Oak  and 
the  Briar,  as  told  by  the  old  shej)herd  Thenot,  who  says  he  connea 
it  of  Tityrus  in  his  youth  :  — 

There  grew  an  aged  tree  on  the  green, 
A  goodly  Oak  sometime  had  it  been, 
With  arms  full  strong  and  lergely  displayed, 
But  of  their  leaves  they  were  disarrayed  ; 


SPENSER.  51i' 

The  body  big  and  mightily  pight,^ 
Throughly  rooted,  and  of  wondrous  height : 
Whilom  he  had  been  the  king  of  the  field, 
And  moi'hel  -  mast  to  the  husband  ^  did  yield, 
And  with  his  nuts  larded  many  swine  ; 
But  now  the  grey  moss  marred  his  rine ;  * 
His  bared  boughs  were  beaten  with  storms, 
His  top  was  bald  and  wasted  with  worms, 
His  honour  decayed,  his  branches  sere. 

Hard  by  his  side  grew  a  bragging  Brere, 
Which  proudly  thrust  into  th'  element. 
And  seemed  to  threat  the  firmament; 
It  was  embellished  with  blossoms  fair, 
And  thereto  aye  wonted  to  repair 
The  shepherds'  daughters  to  gather  flowers, 
To  paint  their  garlands  with  his  colours  ; 
And  in  his  small  bushes  used  to  shrowd 
The  sweet  nightingale,  singing  so  loud  ; 
Which  made  this  foolish  Brere  wex  so  bold, 
That  on  a  time  he  cast  him  to  scold 
And  sneb  the  good  Oak,  for  he  was  old. 

Why  stand'st  there,  quoth  he,  thou  brutish  block  ? 
Nor  for  fruit  nor  for  shadow  serves  thy  stock. 
Seest  how  fresh  my  flowers  been  spread, 
Dyed  in  lilly  white  and  crimson  red, 
With  leaves  engrained  in  lusty  green. 
Colours  meet  to  clothe  a  maiden  queen  ? 
Thy  waste  bigness  but  ciunbers  the  gi-ound. 
And  dirks ^  the  beauty  of  my  blossoms  round; 
The  mouldy  moss  which  thee  accloyeth  ® 
My  cinnamon  smell  too  much  annoyeth  : 
Wherefore  soon,  I  rede''  thee,  hence  remove, 
Lest  thou  the  price  of  my  displeasure  prove. 
So  spake  this  bold  Brere  with  great  disdain  ; 
Little  him  answered  the  Oak  again  ; 
But  yielded,  with  shame  and  grief  adawed  * 
That  of  a  weed  he  was  over-crawed. 

It  chanced  after  upon  a  day 
The  husbandman's  self  to  come  that  way 
Of  custom  to  surview  his  ground, 


'  Strongly  fixed. 

2  Much. 

''  Husbandman 

*  Rind." 

s  Darkens. 

•>  Coils  around 

^  Advise. 

^  Daunted. 

VOL.    I 

8=^ 

514  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  AND   LAXGUAGR 

And  his  trees  of  state  in  compass  round :  * 
Him  when  the  spiteful  Brere  had  espied, 
He  causeless  complained,  and  loudly  cried 
Unto  his  lord,  stirring  up  stern  strife  :  — 

O  my  liege  lord  !  the  God  of  my  life, 
Please  of  you  pond  ^  your  suppliant's  plaint 
Caused  of  wrong  and  cruel  constraint, 
TMiich  I  your  poor  vassal  daily  endure  : 
And.  but  your  goodness  the  same  secure, 
Am  like  for  desperate  dole  to  die, 
Through  felonous  force  of  mine  enemy. 

Greatly  aghast  with  this  piteous  plea. 
Him  rested  the  goodman  on  the  lea. 
And  bade  the  Brere  in  his  plaint  proceed. 
With  painted  words  tho  ^  gan  this  proud  weed 
(As  most  usen  ambitious  folk) 
His  coloured  crime  with  craft  to  cloak  :  — 

Ah,  my  Sovereign  !  lord  of  creatures  all. 
Thou  placer  of  plants  both  humble  and  tall, 
"Was  not  I  planted  of  thine  o^vn  hand. 
To  be  the  primrose  of  all  thy  land, 
With  flowering  blossoms  to  furnish  the  prime,' 
And  scarlet  berries  in  summer  time  ? 
How  falls  it  then  that  this  faded  Oak, 
Whose  body  is  sere,  whose  branches  broke. 
Whose  naked  amis  stretch  i;«ito  the  fire,^ 
Unto  such  tyranny  doth  aspire, 
Hindering  with  his  shade  my  lovely  light. 
And  robbing  me  of  the  sweet  sun's  sight  ? 
So  beat  his  old  boughs  my  tender  side, 
That  oft  the  blood  springeth  from  woimdoa  wide 
Untimely  my  flowers  forced  to  fall, 
That  been  the  honour  of  your  coronal ; 
And  oft  he  lets  his  canker-worms  light 
Upon  my  branches,  to  work  me  more  spite  ; 
And  oft  his  iioaiy  locks  down  doth  cast, 
Where^N-ith  my  fresh  flowrets  been  defast 
For  this,  and  many  more  such  outrage. 
Crave  I  ®  your  goodlyhead  to  assuage 

^  Perhaps  tlie  true  reading  is  "encompass  round,"  that  is,  circumambulate. 
-  Ponder,  consider.  ^  Then.  '  *  Spring 

'  The  meaning  seems  to  be,  are  read}^  for  firewood 
•  The  common  reading  is  "  craving." 


SPENSER.  o^ ; 

Tlie  rancorous  rigour  of  his  might : 
Nouglit  ask  I  but  only  to  hold  my  right, 
Submitting  me  to  your  good  sufferance, 
And  praying  to  be  guarded  from  grievance. 

To  this  the  Oak  cast  him  to  reply 
Well  as  he  couth ;  i  but  his  enemy 
Had  kindled  such  coals  of  displeasure, 
That  the  goodman  -  nould  ^  stay  his  leisure, 
But  home  him  hasted  with  furious  heat. 
Increasing  his  wrath  with  many  a  threat : 
His  harmful  hatchet  he  hent^  in  hand 
(Alas  !  that  it  so  ready  should  stand  !) 
And  to  the  field  alone  he  speedeth 
(Aye  little  help  to  harm  there  needeth), 
Anger  nould  let  him  speak  to  the  tree, 
Enaunter  °  his  rage  mought  cooled  be, 
But  to  the  root  bent  hi-  sturdy  stroke, 
And  made  many  Avounds  in  the  wasted  Oak : 
The  axe's  edge  did  oft  turn  again. 
As  half  unwilling  to  cut  the  grain ; 
Seemed  the  senseless  iron  did  fear, 
Or  to  wrong  holy  eld  did  forbear  ; 
For  it  had  been  an  ancient  tree, 
Sacred  with  many  a  mystery. 
And  often  crossed  with  the  priests'  crew, 
And  often  hallowed  with  holy  water  due ; 
But  like  fancies  weren  foolery. 
And  broughten  this  Oak  to  this  misery  ; 
For  nought  mought  they  quitten  him  from  decay ; 
For  fiercely  the  goodman  at  him  did  lay. 
The  block  oft  groaned  under  his  blow. 
And  sighed  to  see  his  near  overthrow. 
In  fine  ®  the  steel  had  pierced  his  pith  ; 
Tho  down  to  the  ground  he  fell  therewith. 
His  wondrous  weight  made  the  ground  to  quake  ; 
The  earth  shrunk  under  him,  and  seemed  to  shake  : 
There  lieth  the  Oak,  pitied  of  none. 

Now  stands  the  Brere  like  a  lord  alone, 
Puffed  up  with  pride  and  vain  pleasance : 
But  all  this  glee  had  no  continuance  ; 
For  eftsoons  winter  gan  to  approach, 

As  well  as  he  could.  -  Farmer.  *  Would  not. 

Took.  *  Lest  tliat  ®  At  last. 


516  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

The  l)lustering  Boreas  did  encroach 
Aiid  beat  upon  the  solitary  Brere, 
For  now  no  succour  was  seen  him  near. 
Now  gan  he  repent  his  pride  too  hite  ; 
For,  naked  left  and  disconsolate, 
The  biting  frost  nipt  his  stalk  dead, 
The  watery  wet  weighed  down  his  head, 
And  heaped  snow  burthened  him  so  sore 
That  now  upi-ight  he  can  stand  no  more ; 
And,  being  down,  is  trod  in  the  dirt 
Of  cattle,  and  brouzed,^  and  sorely  hurt. 
Such  was  the  end  of  this  ambitious  Brere, 
For  scorning  eld. 

The  story  is  admirably  told,  certainly  ;  Avith  wonderful  facility 
of  expression,  as  well  as  with  a  fancy  and  invention  at  once  the 
most  just  and  spirited,  and  the  most  easy  and  copious  —  altogether 
so  as  to  betoken  a  poet  such  as  had  not  yet  arisen  in  the  language 
since  it  had  settled  down  into  its  existing  form.  This  earKest  work 
of  Spenser's,  however,  betrays  his  study  of  our  elder  poetry  as 
much  by  its  diction  as  by  the  other  indications  already  mentioned  : 
he  has  thickly  sprinkled  it  Avith  words  and  phrases  which  had  gen- 
erally ceased  to  be  used  at  the  time  when  it  was  wa-itten.  This 
he  seems  to  have  done,  not  so  much  that  the  antiquated  style  might 
give  the  dialogue  an  air  of  rusticity  proper  to  the  speech  of  shep- 
herds, but  rather  in  the  same  spirit  and  design  (though  he  has  car- 
ried the  practice  much  farther)  in  which  Virgil  has  done  the  same 
thino-  in  his  heroic  poetry,  that  his  verse  might  thereby  be  the 
more  distinguished  from  connnon  discourse,  that  it  might  iall  upon 
the  ears  of  men  with  something  of  the  impressiveness  and  authority 
of  a  voice  from  other  times,  and  that  it  might  seem  to  echo,  and, 
as  it  were,  continue  and  prolong,  the  strain  of  the  old  national 
minstrelsy  ;  thus  at  once  expressing  his  love  and  admiration  of  the 
preceding  poets  who  had  been  his  examples,  and,  in  part,  his  in- 
structors and  inspirers,  and  making  their  compositions  reflect  addi- 
tional light  and  beauty  upon  his  own.  This  is  almost  the  only 
advantage  which  the  later  poets  in  any  language  have  over  the 
earlier  ;  and  Spenser  has  availed  himself  of  it  more  or  less  in 
most  of  his  writings,  though  not  in  any  later  work  to  the  same 
-xtent  as  in  this  first  publication.     Perhaps  also  there  may  be  dis- 

1  Bruised. 


SPENSER.  517 

covered  in  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  some  other  traces  of  his  studies 
in  experimental  versification  at  this  time  (to  which  his  attention 
may  have  been  awakened  by  his  friend  Harvey's  lucubrations), 
besides  his  attempts  to  imitate  the  metre  of  Chaucer  or  Piers 
Ploughman.  The  work  is,  at  least,  remarkable  for  the  variety  of 
measures  in  ■which  it  is  composed.  The  most  spirited  of  its  lyric 
passages  is  a  panegyric  upon  Elizabeth  in  the  Fourth  Eclogue,  of 
which,  as  the  work  is  not  much  read,  we  may  transcribe  a  few 
verses.  It  is  recited  by  Hobbinol  (Gabriel  Harvey),  who,  on  the 
request  of  Thenot  that  he  would  repeat  to  him  one  of  his  friend 
Colin's  songs,  framed  before  his  love  for  Rosalind  had  made  him 
break  his  pipe,  replies  :  — 

"  Contented  I ;  then  will  I  sing  his  lay 
Of  fair  Eliza,  queen  of  shepherds  all, 
Which  once  he  made  as  by  a  spring  he  lay, 
And  tuned  it  unto  the  water's  fall :  "  — 

See  where  she  sits  upon  the  grassy  green, 

(0  seemly  sight !) 

Yclad  in  scarlet,  like  a  maiden  queen, 

And  ermines  white  ; 

Upon  her  head  a  crimson  coronet. 

With  damask  roses  and  daffadillies  set : 

Bay  leaves  between, 

And  primroses  green, 

Embellish  the  sweet  violet. 

I  see  Calliope  speed  to  the  place 

Wliere  my  goddess  shines, 

And  after  her  the  other  Muses  trace  * 

With  their  violines. 

Been  they  not  bay  branches  which  they  do  bear 

All  for  Eliza  in  her  hand  to  wear  ? 

So  sweetly  they  play, 

And  sing  all  the  way. 

That  it  a  he&ven  is  to  hear. 

Lo,  how  finely  the  Graces  can  it  foot 
To  the  instrument ! 
They  dancen  defly,  and  singen  soot  '^ 
1  Walk.  2  Sweet. 


518  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

In  their  merriment. 

"Wants  not  a  fourtli  Grace  to  make  the  dance  even  ? 

Let  that  room  to  my  Lady  be  yeven.* 

She  shall  be  a  Grace 

To  fill  the  fourth  place, 

And  reign  with  the  rest  in  heaven. 

And  whither  rens  this  bevy  of  ladies  bright, 

Ranged  in  a  row  ? 

They  been  all  Ladies  of  the  Lake  behight  ^ 

That  unto  her  go. 

Chloris,  that  is  the  chiefest  nymph  of  all, 

Of  olive  branches  bears  a  coronal : 

Olives  been  for  peace, 

"When  wars  do  surcease  ; 

Such  for  a  princess  been  principal. 

Ye  shepherds'  daughters  that  dwell  on  the  green. 

Hie  you  there  apace  : 

Let  none  come  there  but  that  virgins  been. 

To  adorn  her  grace  ; 

And,  when  you  come  whereas  ^  she  is  in  place, 

See  that  your  rudeness  do  not  you  disgrace. 

Bind  your  fillets  fast, 

And  gird  in  your  waste. 

For  more  fineness,  with  a  tawdry  lace. 

Bring  hither  the  pink  and  purple  cullumbine, 

Witli  gillyflowers  ; 

Bring  coronations,  and  sops  in  wine. 

Worn  of  paramours  : 

Strow  me  the  ground  with  daffadowndillies, 

And  cowslips,  and  kingcups,  and  loved  lillies : 

The  pretty  pance 

And  the  chevisance 

Shall  match  with  the  fair  flower-delice. 

Now  rise  up,  Eliza,  decked  as  ^lou  art 

In  royal  ray  ;  * 

And  now  ye  dainty  damsels  may  depart, 

Eacli  one  her  way. 

I  fear  I  have  troubled  your  troops  too  long ; 

1  Given.  2  Called,  named.  »  Where.  *  Array 


SrENSER,  519 

Let  Dame  Eliza  thank  you  for  her  song ; 

And,  it'  you  come  1  leather  ^ 

When  damsons  I  gather, 

I  will  part  them  all  you  among. 

Executed  in  a  firmer  and  more  matured  style,  and,  though  with 
more  regularity  of  manner,  yet  also  with  more  true  boldness  and 
freedom,  is  the  admirable  Prosopopoia,  as  it  is  designated,  of  the 
adventures  of  the  Fox  and  the  Ape,  or  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale, 
notwithstanding  that  this,  too,  is  stated  to  have  been  an  early  pro- 
duction —  "  long  sithens  composed,"  says  the  author  in  his  dedica- 
tion of  it  to  the  Lady  Compton  and  Monteagle,  "  in  the  I'aw  con- 
ceit of  my  youth."  Perhaps,  however,  this  was  partly  said  to 
avert  the  offence  that  might  be  taken  at  the  audacity  of  the  satire. 
It  has  not  much  the  appearance,  either  in  manner  or  in  matter,  of 
the  production  of  a  very  young  writer,  although  it  may  have  been 
written  before  any  part  of  the  Fairy  Queen,  at  least  in  the  ma- 
tured form  of  that  poem  ;  for  we  can  hardly  believe  that  the  work 
spoken  of  vmder  that  name  as  in  hand  in  1579  was  the  same  the 
first  part  of  which  was  not  published  till  eleven  years  afterwards. 
We  should  say  that  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale  represents  the  middle 
age  of  Spenser's  genius,  if  not  of  his  life  —  the  stage  in  his  mental 
and  poetical  progress  when  his  relish  and  power  of  the  energetic 
had  attained  perfection,  but  the  higher  sense  of  the  beautiful  had 
not  yet  been  fully  developed.  Such  appears  to  be  the  natural  pro- 
gress of  every  mind  that  is  capable  of  the  highest  things  in  both 
these  directions :  the  feeling  of  force  is  first  awakened,  or  at  least 
is  first  matured  ;  the  feelins:  of  beautv  is  of  later  growth.  With 
even  poetical  minds  of  a  subordinate  class,  indeed,  it  may  some- 
times happen  that  a  perception  of  the  beautifiil,  and  a  faculty  of 
embodying  it  in  words,  acquire  a  considerable  development  witlunit 
the  love  and  capacity  of  the  energetic  having  ever  shown  them- 
selves in  any  unusual  degree  :  such  may  be  said  to  have  been  the 
case  with  Petrarch,  to  quote  a  remarkable  example.  But  the 
greatest  poets  have  all  been  complete  men,  with  the  sense  of 
beauty,  indeed,  strong  and  exquisite,  and  crowning  all  their  other 
endowments,  which  is  what  makes  them  the  greatest ;  but  also  with 
all  other  passions  and  powers  correspondingly  vigorous  and  active. 
Homer,  Dante,  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakspeare,  Milton,  Goethe, 
■vere  all  of  them  manifestly  capable  of  achieving  any  degree  of 

1  Hither. 


520  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

success  in  any  other  field  as  Avell  as  in  poetry.  They  were  n^t 
only  poetically,  but  in  all  other  respects,  the  most  gifted  intelli- 
gences of  their  times :  men  of  the  largest  sense,  of  the  most  pene- 
trating insight,  of  the  most  general  research  and  information ;  nay, 
even  in  the  most  worldly  arts  and  dexterities,  able  to  cope  with  the 
ablest,  whenever  they  chose  to  throw  themselves  into  that  game. 
They  may  not  any  of  them  have  attained  the  highest  degree  of 
what  is  called  worldly  success  ;  some  of  them  may  have  even  been 
t-rushed  by  the  force  of  circumstances  or  evil  days  ;  Milton  may 
have  died  in  obscurity,  Dante  in  exile  ;  "vtlie  vision  and  the  fac- 
ulty divine  "  may  have  been  all  the  light  that  cheered,  all  the 
estate  that  sustained,  the  old  age  of  Homer  ;  but  no  one  can  sup- 
pose that  in  any  of  these  cases  it  was  want  of  the  requisite  skill  or 
talent  that  denied  a  difi^erent  fortune.  As  for  Spenser,  we  shall 
certainly  much  mistake  his  character  if  we  suppose,  from  the 
romantic  and  unworldly  strain  of  much  —  and  that,  doubtless,  the 
best  and  highest — of  his  poetry,  that  he  was  anything  resembling 
a  mere  dreamer.  In  the  first  place,  the  vast  extent  of  his  knowl- 
edge, comprehending  all  the  learning  of  his  age^,  and  his  volumi- 
nous wTitings,  sufficiently  prove  that  his  days  were  not  spent  in  idle- 
ness. Then,  even  m  the  matter  of  securing  a  livelihood .  and  a 
position  in  the  world,  want  of  activity  or  eagerness  is  a  fault  of 
Avhich  he  can  hardly  be  accused.  Bred,  for  whatever  reason,  to  no 
profession,  it  may  be  doubted  if  he  had  any  other  course  to  take, 
in  that  age,  upon  the  Avhole  so  little  objectionable  as  the  one  he 
adopted.  The  scheme  of  life  with  which  he  set  out  seems  to  have 
been  to  endeavor,  first  of  all,  to  procure  for  himself,  by  any  honor- 
able means,  the  leisure  necessary  to  enable  him  to  cultivate  and 
employ  his  poetical  powers.  With  this  view  he  addressed  himself 
to  Sidney,  the  chief  professed  patron  of  letters  in  that  day  (when, 
as  yet,  letters  really  depended  to  a  great  e^xtent  for  encouragement 
and  support  upon  the  ])atronage  of  the  great),  hoping,  through  his 
interest,  to  obtain  such  a  provision  as  he  required  from  the  bounty 
of  the  crown.  In  thus  seeking  to  be  supported  at  the  public 
expense,  and  to  withdraw  a  small  portion  of  a  fund,  pretty  sure  to 
lie  otherwise  wasted  upon  worse  objectSj  for  the  modest  mainte- 
nance of  one  poet,  can  we  say  tlint  Spenser,  being  what  he  was, 
was  much,  or  at  all,  to  blame  ?  Would  it  have  been  wiser,  or  more 
highminded,  or  in  any  sense  better,  for  him  to  have  thrown  him- 
self, like  Greene  and  Nash,  and   the  rest  of  that  crew,  upon  the 


SPENSER.  521 

town,  and,  like  tliera,  wasted  his  fine  genius  in  pamphleteering  and 
blackguardism  ?  He  knew  that  he  would  not  eat  that  public  bread 
without  returning  to  his  country  what  she  gave  him  a  hundred  and 
a  thousand  fold ;  he  who  must  have  felt  and  Tcnown  well  that  no 
man  had  yet  uttered  himself  in  the  English  tongue  so  endowed  for 
conferring  upon  the,  land,  the  language,  and  the  peoj)le  Avhat  all 
fiiture  generations  would  prize  as  their  best  inheritance,  and  what 
would  contribute  more  than  laws  or  victories,  or  any  other  glory, 
to  maintain  the  name  of  England  in  honor  and  renown  so  long  as 
it  should  be  heard  of  amono;  men. 

But  he  did  not  immediately  succeed  in  his  object.  It  is  probably 
time,  as  has  been  commonly  stated,  that  Burghley  looked  with  but 
small  regard  upon  the  poet  and  his  claims.  However,  he  at  last 
contrived  to  overcome  this  obstacle ;  and  eventually,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  obtained  fi'om  the  crown  both  lands,  offices,  and  a  consid- 
erable pension.  It  is  not  at  all  likely  that,  circumstanced  as  he 
was  at  the  commencement  of  his  career,  Spenser  could  in  any 
other,  way  have  attained  so  soon  to  the  same  comparative  affluence 
that  he  thus  acquired.  Probably  the  only  respect  in  which  he  felt 
much  dissatisfied  or  disappointed  was  in  being  obliged  to  take  up 
his  residence  in  Ireland,  without  which,  it  may  have  been,  he  would 
have  derived  little  or  no  benefit  from  liis  grant  of  land.  ]\Iother 
Hubberds  Tale  must  be  supposed  to  ha"\e  been  written  before  he 
obtained  that  grant.  It  is  a  sharp  and  shrewd  satire  upon  the 
common  modes  of  rising  in  the  church  and  state  ;  not  at  all  pas- 
sionate or  declamatory,  —  on  the  contrary,  pervaded  by  a  spirit  of 
quiet  humor,  which  only  occasionally  gives  place  to  a  tone  of  greater 
elevation  and  solemnity,  but,  assuredly,  Avith  all  its  high-minded 
and  even  severe  morality-,  evincing  in  the  author  anything  rather 
than  either  ignorance  of  the  world  or  indifference  to  the  ordinary 
objects  of  human  ambition.  No  one  will  rise  from  its  perusal  with 
the  notion  that  Spenser  was  a  mere  rhyming  visionary,  or  singing 
somnambulist.  No ;  like  every  other  greatest  poet,  he  Avas  an 
eminently  wise  man,  exercised  in  every  field  of  thought,  and  rich 
in  all  knowledge  — above  all,  in  knowledge  of  mankind,  the  proper 
study  of  man.  In  this  poem  of  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale  we  still 
find  also  both  his  puritanism  and  his  imitation  of  Chaucer,  two 
'hings  which  disappear  altogether  from  his  later  poetry.  Indeed, 
be  has  wi-itten  nothing  else  so  much  in  Chaucer's  manner  and 
sj)irit ;  nor  have  we  nearly  so  true  a  reflection,  or  rather  revival, 

VOL.  I.  66 


522  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  the  Cliaucerian  narrative  style  —  at  once  easy  and  natural,  cleai 
and  direct,  firm  and  economical,  various  and  always  spirited  —  in 
any  other  modern  verse.  We  will  pass  over  the  description  of  the 
brave  and  honorable  courtier  (intended  for  Sidney),  which  is 
probably  known  to  most  of  our  readers,  and  the  still  more  famous 
passage  in  which  the  niisei'able  state  of  a  suitor  for  court-favor 
(supposed  to  be  the  author's  own  case  at  the  time)  is  depicted  with 
such  indignant  force  and  bitterness  of  expression.  What  a  fulness 
of  matter  and  driving  sleet  of  words  there  is  in  the  following  de- 
scription of  the  moral  anarchy  wrought  by  the  Ape  and  the  Fox 
after  the  former  had  stolen  the  lion's  hide  and  other  royal  emblems, 
and  seated  himself  on  the  throne,  with  his  companion  and  insticrator 
for  his  chief  counsellor  and  minister !  — 

First,  to  his  gate  he  'pointed  a  strong  guard, 

That  none  might  enter  but  with  issue  hard ; 

Then,  for  the  safeguard  of  his  personage, 

He  did  appoint  a  warUke  equipage 

Of  foreign  beasts,  not  in  the  forest  bred, 

But  part  by  land  and  part  by  water  fed ; 

For  tyranny  is  with  strange  aid  supported : 

Then  unto  him  all  monstrous  beasts  resorted, 

Bred  of  two  kinds,  as  griffons,  minotaurs. 

Crocodiles,  dragons,  beavers,  and  centaurs  ; 

With  those  liimself  he  strengthened  mightily, 

That  fear  he  need  no  force  of  enemy. 

Then  gan  he  rule  and  tyrannize  at  will. 

Like  as  the  Fox  did  guide  his  graceless  skill. 

And  all  wikl  beasts  made  vassals  of  his  pleasures, 

And  with  their  spoils  enlarged  his  private  treasures. 

No  care  of  justice,  nor  no  rule  of  reason. 

No  temperance,  nor  no  regard  of  season, 

Did  thenceforth  ever  enter  in  his  mind  : 

But  cruelty,  the  sign  of  curi'isli  kind. 

And  'sdainful  pride,  and  wilful  arrogance  ; 

Such  fellows  those  whom  Fortune  doth  advance. 
But  the  false  Fox  most  kindly  ^  played  his  part ; 

For  whatsoever  mother  wit  or  art 

Could  work  he  put  in  proof;  no  practice  sly, 

No  counterpoint  of  cunning  policy. 

No  reach,  no  breach,  that  might  him  profit  bring, 

But  he  the  same  did  to  his  purj)0se  wring. 
1  According  to  his  nature. 


SPENSER.  523 

Nought  suffered  he  the  Ape  to  give  or  grant, 
But  through  his  hand  alone  must  pass  the  fiaut.* 
All  offices,  all  leases  by  him  leapt, 
And  of  them  all  whatso  he  liked  he  kept. 
Justice  he  sold,  injustice  for  to  buy. 
And  for  to  purchase  for  his  progeny. 
Ill  might  it  prosper  that  ill  gotten  was ; 
But,  so  he  got  it,  little  did  he  pass. 
He  fed  his  cubs  with  fat  of  all  the  soil, 
And  with  the  sweet  of  others'  sweating  toil ; 
He  crammed  them  with  crumbs  of  benefices, 
And  filled  their  mouths  with  meeds  of  malefices. 
He  clothed  them  with  all  colours  save  white, 
And  loaded  them  with  lordships  and  with  might, 
So  much  as  they  were  able  Avell  to  bear. 
That  with  the  weight  their  backs  nigh  broken  wei«. 
He  chaffered  chairs  in  which  churchmen  were  set, 
And  breach  of  laws  to  privy  farm  did  let. 
No  statute  so  established  might  be. 
Nor  oi-dinance  so  needful,  but  that  he 
Would  violate,  though  not  with  violence, 
Yet  under  colour  of  the  confidence 
The  which  the  Ape  reposed  in  him  alone. 
And  reckoned  him  the  kingdom's  corner-stone ; 
And  ever,  when  he  aught  would  bring  to  pass, 
His  long  experience  the  platform  was ; 
And,  Avheu  he  aught  not  pleasing  would  put  by, 
The  cloak  was  care  of  thrift  and  husbandry. 
For  to  increase  the  common  treasure's  store ; 
But  his  own  treasure  he  increased  more, 
And  lifted  up  his  lofty  towers  thereby. 
That  they  began  to  threat  the  neighbour  sky; 
The  whiles  the  prince's  palaces  fell  fast 
To  ruin  ;  for  what  thing  can  ever  last  ? 
And  whilst  the  other  peers  for  poverty 
Were  forced  their  ancient  houses  to  let  lie, 
And  their  old  castles  to  the  ground  to  fall, 
Which  their  forefathers,  famous  over  all. 
Had  founded  for  the  kingdom's  ornament. 
And  for  their  memories'  long  moniment. 
But  he  no  count  made  of  nobility. 
Nor  the  wild  beasts  whom  arms  did  glorify, 
1  Warrant. 


^24  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AXD   LANGUAGE. 

The  realm's  chief  strength,  and  girland  of  the  crown 

All  these,  through  feigned  crimes,  he  thrust  ado\\'n, 

Or  made  them  dwell  in  darkness  of  disgrace ; 

For  none  but  whom  he  list  might  come  in  place. 

Of  men  of  arms  he  had  but  small  regard. 

But  kept  them  low,  and  straitened  very  hard. 

For  men  of  learning  little  he  esteemed ; 

His  wisdom  he  above  their  learning  deemed. 

As  for  the  rascal  commons,  least  he  cared. 

For  not  so  common  was  his  bounty  shared ; 

Let  God,  said  he,  if  please,  care  for  the  many ; 

I  for  myself  must  care  before  else  any. 

So  did  he  good  to  none,  to  many  ill ; 

So  did  he  all  the  kingdom  rob  and  pill ; 

Yet  none  durst  speak,  nor  none  durst  of  him  plain. 

So  great  he  was  in  grace,  and  rich  through  gain  ; 

Ne  would  he  any  let  to  have  access 

Unto  the  prince  but  by  his  own  address ; 

For  all  that  else  did  come  were  sure  to  fail ; 

Yet  would  he  further  none  but  for  avail.* 

For  on  a  time  the  Sheep,  to  whom  of  yore 

The  Fox  had  promised  of  friendship  store. 

What  time  the  Ape  the  kingdom  first  did  gain, 

Came  to  the  court  her  case  there  to  complam, 

How  that  the  "Wolf,  her  mortal  enemy, 

Had  sithence-  slain  her  lamb  most  cruelly. 

And  therefore  craved  to  come  unto  the  king 

To  let  him  know  the  order  of  the  thing. 

Soft,  Goody  Sheep,  then  said  the  P^'ox,  not  so  ; 

Unto  the  king  so  rash  ye  may  not  go; 

He  is  with  greater  matter  busied 

Than  a  lamb,  or  the  lamb's  own  mother's  head ; 

Ne  certes  mny  I  take  it  well  in  part 

That  ye  my  cousin  Wolf  so  foully  thwart. 

And  seek  with  slander  his  good  name  to  blot ; 

For  there  was  cause,  else  do  it  he  would  not. 

Tlierefore  surcease,  good  dame,  and  hence  depart : 

So  went  the  Sheep  away  with  heavy  heart : 

So  many  mo,**  so  every  one  was  used. 

That  to  give  largely  to  the  box  refused. 

We  must  add  the  winding  up  of  tlie  story,  as  a  sample  of  tl>e 
^  Bribe.  2  since.  »  More. 


SPEiNbEK.  525 

more  descriptive  portions  of  the  poem.  Wliat  is  going  </n  at  last 
attracts  the  notice  of  the  powers  above :  — 

Now,  when  high  Jove,  in  whose  almighty  hand 
The  care  of  kings  and  power  of  empires  stand, 
Sitting  one  day  within  his  turret  high, 
From  whence  lie  views  with  his  black-lidded  eye 
Whatso  the  heaven  in  his  wide  vault  contains, 
And  all  that  in  the  deepest  earth  remains. 
The  troubled  kingdom  of  wild  beasts  beheld. 
Whom  not  their  kindly  ^  sovereign  did  weld,^ 
But  an  usurping  Ape,  with  guile  suborned. 
Had  all  subversed,  he  'sdainfully  it  scorned 
In  his  great  heart,  and  hardly  did  refrain 
But  that  with  thunderbolts  he  had  him  slain. 

Jove  forthwith  calls  Mercury  to  him,  and  despatches  him  to  the 
earth  :  — 

The  son  of  Maia,  soon  as  he  received 

That  word,  straijiht  with  his  azure  wings  he  cleaved 

The  liquid  clouds  and  lucid  firmament, 

Ne  stayed  till  that  he  came  with  steep  descent 

Unto  the  place  where  his  presci'ipt  did  show : 

There  stooping,  like  an  arrow  from  a  bow, 

He  soft  arrived  on  the  grassy  plain. 

And  fairly  paced  forth  with  easy  pain, 

Till  that  unto  the  palace  nigh  he  came  ; 

Then  gan  he  to  himself  new  shape  to  frame, 

And  that  fair  face,  and  that  ambrosial  hue, 

Which  wonts  to  deck  the  gods'  immortal  crew 

And  beautify  the  shiny  firmament, 

He  doft,  unfit  for  that  rude  rabblement. 

Mercury  p\its  on  his  hat  of  invisibiUty,  and,  taking  his  cadnceus 
in  his  liand,  makes  a  survey  of  the  scene  of  extortion,  oppression, 
and  lawlessness.  He  sees  on  all  sides  more  of  ill  of  all  khids  than 
can  be  told  :  — 

Which  when  he  did  with  loathful  eyes  behold 
He  would  no  more  endure,  but  came  his  way, 
And  cast  to  seek  the  Lion  where  he  may. 
That  he  might  work  the  avengement  for  his  shame 
On  those  two  caitives  which  liad  bred  him  blame  ; 
And,  seeking  all  the  fo"*^st  busily, 
1  Natural.  -  Wield, 


526  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

At  last  he  found  where  sleeping  he  did  lie. 

The  wncked  weed,  which  there  the  Fox  did  lay, 

From  underneath  his  head  he  took  away, 

And  then  him  waking  forced  up  to  rise. 

The  Lion,  looking  up,  gan  him  avize, 

As  one  late  in  a  trance,  what  had  of  long 

Become  of  him,  for  fantasy  is  strong. 

Arise,  said  IMercury,  thou  sluggish  beast, 

Tliat  here  lies  senseless,  like  the  corpse  deceast, 

The  whilst  thy  kingdom  from  thy  head  is  rent, 

And  thy  throne  royal  with  dishonour  blent. 

Arise,  and  do  thyself  redeem  from  shame, 

And  be  avenged  on  those  that  breed  thy  blame. 

Thereat  enraged,  soon  he  gan  upstart. 

Grinding  liis  teetli,  and  grating  his  great  heart ; 

And,  rousing  up  himself,  for  his  rough  hide 

He  gan  to  reach,  but  nowhere  it  espied. 

Therewith  he  gan  full  terrible  to  roar. 

And  chaufed  at  that  indignity  right  sore  ; 

But,  when  his  crown  and  sceptre  both  lie  wanted. 

Lord,  how  he  fumed,  and  swelled,  and  raged,  and  panted. 

And  threatened  death,  and  thousand  deadly'dolours, 

To  them  that  had  purloined  his  princely  honours  ! 

With  that,  in  haste,  disrobed  as  he  was. 

He  towards  his  own  palace  forth  did  pass  ; 

And  all  the  way  he  roared  as  he  went, 

That  all  the  forest  with  astonishment 

Thereof  did  tremble,  and  the  beasts  therein 

Fled  fast  away  from  that  so  dreadful  din. 

At  last  he  came  unto  his  mansion. 

Where  all  the  gates  he  found  fast  locked  anon, 

And  many  warders  round  about  them  stood  : 

With  that  he  roared  aloud  as  he  were  wood. 

That  all  the  ])alace  quaked  at  the  stound, 

As  if  it  quite  were  riven  from  the  ground  ; 

And  all  within  were  dead  and  heartless  left, 

And  the  Ape  himself,  as  one  whose  wits  were  reft, 

Fled  here  and  there,  and  every  corner  sought. 

To  hide  him^^elf  from  his  own  feared  thought. 

But  the  false  Fox,  when  he  the  Lion  heard, 

F'led  closely  forth,  straightway  of  death  afeard. 

And  to  the  Lion  came  full  lowly  creeping, 

With  feigned  face,  and  wateiy  eyue  half  weeping, 


SPENSER.  .'^27 

To  excuse  his  former  treason  ai.d  abusion, 

And  turning  all  unto  the  Ape's  confusion  ; 

Nathless  ^  the  royal  beast  forbore  believing, 

But  bade  him  stay  at  ease  till  further  prieving.'* 

Then,  Avhen  he  saw  no  entrance  to  him  granted, 

Roaring  yet  louder,  that  all  hearts  it  daunted. 

Upon  those  gates  with  force  he  fiercely  flew. 

And,  rending  them  in  pieces,  felly  slew 

Those  warders  strange,  and  all  that  else  he  met. 

But  the  Ape,  still  flying,  he  nowhere  might  get : 

From  room  to  room,  from  beam  to  beam  he  fled. 

All  breathless,  and  for  fear  now  almost  dead. 

Yet  him  at  last  the  Lion  spied  and  caught. 

And  forth  with  shame  unto  his  judgment  brought. 

Then  all  the  beasts  he  caused  assembled  be. 

To  hear  their  doom,  and  sad  ensample  see  : 

The  Fox,  first  author  of  that  treachery. 

He  did  uncase,  and  then  away  let  fly  ; 

But  the  Ape's  long  tail  (which  then  he  had)  he  quite 

Cut  off,  and  both  ears  pared  of  their  height ; 

Since  which  all  apes  but  half  their  ears  have  left. 

And  of  their  tails  are  utterly  bereft. 

It  would  not  have  been  possible  to  take  the  apologue  of  the 
Ape  and  tlie  Fox  for  any  covert  representation  of  the  state  of  the 
English  court  or  government  at  the  time  when  this  poem  appeared, 
or  even  perhaps  to  discover  the  veiled  likeness  of  an  existing  min- 
ister or  courtier  in  any  of  its  delineations  ;  —  but  the  satire  was 
certainly  not  without  some  strokes  that  were  likely  enough  to  be 
felt  by  powerful  individuals,  and  the  entire  exposition  was  not  cal- 
culated to  be  agreeable  to  those  at  the  head  of  affairs.  It  was 
probably,  therefore,  just  as  fortunate  for  Spenser  that,  in  whatever 
humor  or  with  Avhatever  view  it  was  written,  it  did  not  see  the 
lio;ht  till  after  he  had  obtained  both  his  grant  of  land  and  his 
pension. 

The  Fairy  Queen  was  designed  by  its  author  to  be  taken  as  an 
allegoiy —  "  a  continued  allegory,  or  dark  conceit,"  as  he  calls  it 
m  his  preliminary  Letter  to  Raleigh,  "  expounding  his  whole  inten- 
tion in  the  course  of  this  work."  The  allegory  was  even  artificial 
and  involved  to  an  unusual  degree  ;  for  not  only  was  the  Fairy 
Queen,  by  whom  the  knights  are  sent  forth  upon  their  adventures, 
'  Nevertheless.  ^  Proviiifr. 


528  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

to  be  understood  as  meaning  Glory  in  the  general  intention,  but  in 
a  more  particular  sense  she  was  to  stand  for  "  the  most  excellent 
and  glorious  person"  of  Queen  Elizabeth;  and  some  other  eminent 
individual  of  the  day  appears  in  like  manner  to  have  been  shad- 
owed forth  in  each  of  the  other  figures^^^Tlie  most  interesting 
allegory  that  was  ever  written  carries  us  along  chiefly  by  making 
us  forget  that  it  is  an  allegory  at  all.  The  charm  of  Bunyans 
Pilgrim's  Progress  is  that  all  the  persons  and  all  the  places  in  it 
seem  real  —  that  Christian,  and  Evangelist,  and  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman,  and  Mr.  Greatheart,  and  the  Giant  Despair,  and  ah 
the  rest,  are  to  our  apprehension  not  shadows,  but  beings  of  flesh 
and  blood  ;  and  the  Slough  of  Despond,  Vanity  Fair,  Doubting 
Castle,  the  Valley  of  Humihation,  and  the  Enchanted  Ground, 
ill  so  many  actual  scenes  or  localities  which  we  have  as  we  read 
before  us  or  around  us.  For  the  moral  lessons  that  are  to  be  got 
out  of  the  parable,  it  must  no  doubt  be  considered  in  another  man- 
ner ;  but  we  speak  of  the  delight  it  yields  as  a  work  of  imagination. 
That  is  not  increased,  but  impaired,  or  destroyed,  by  regarding  it 
as  an  allegory — just  as  would  be  the  humor  of  Don  Quixote,  or 
the  marvels  of  the  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments,  by  either 
work  being  so  regarded.  In  the  same  manner,  whoever  w^ould 
enjoy  the  Fairy  Queen  as  a  poem  must  forget  that  it  is  an  allegory, 
either  single  or  double,  either  compound  or  simple.  Nor  in  truth 
is  it  even  much  of  a  story.  Neither  the  personages  that  move  in 
it,  nor  the  adventures  they  meet  with,  interest  us  much../  For  that 
matter,  the  most  ordinary  novel,  or  a  police  report  in  a  newspaper, 
may  often  be  much  more  entertaining.  One  fortunate  consequence 
of  all  this  is,  that  the  poem  scarcely  loses  anything  by  tlie  design 
of  the  author  never  having  been  completed,  or  its  completion  at 
least  not  having  come  down  to  us.  What  we  have  of  it  is  not 
injured  in  any  material  respect  by  the  want  of  the  rest.  This 
Spenser  himself  no  doubt  felt  when  he  originally  gave  it  to  the 
world  in  successive  portions  ;  —  and  it  would  not  have  mattered 
much  although  of  the  six  Books  he  had  published  the  three  last 
efore  the  three  first. 
These  peculiarities  —  the  absence  of  an  interesting  stor3'  oi- 
concatenation  of  incidents,  and  the  Avant  of  human  character  jind 
passion  in  the  personages  that  carry  on  the  story,  such  as  it  is — 
are  no  defects  in  the  Fairy  Queen.  On  the  contrary,  the  poetry 
i>  oidy  left  thereby  so  nuich  the  purer.     Without  calling  Spenser 


SPENSER.  520 

the  gi-eatest  of  poets,  we  may  still  say  that  his  poetry  is  the  most 
poetical  of  all  poetry.  Other  poets  are  all  of  them  something  else 
as  well  as  poets,  and  deal  in  reflection,  or  reasoning,  or  humor,  or 
wit,  almost  as  largely  as  in  the  proper  product  of  the  imaginative 
faculty ;  his  strains  alone,  in  the  Fairy  Queen,  are  poetry,  all 
poetry,  and  nothing  but  poetry.  It  is  vision  unrolled  after  vision, 
to  the  sound  of  endlessly  varying  music.  The  '■'■shaping  spirit  of 
imagination,"  considered  apart  from  moral  sensibility,  —  from  in- 
tensity of  passion  on  the  one  han^  and  grandeur  of  conception  on 
the  other,  —  certainly  never  was  poT^sessed  in  the  like  degree  by 
any  other  writer  ;  nor  has  any  other  evinced  a  deeper  feeling  of 
all  forms  of  the  beautifril ;  nor  have  words  ever  been  made  by  any 
other  to  embody  thought  with  more  wonderful  art.  On  the  one 
hand  invention  and  fancy  in  the  creation  or  conception  of  his 
thoughts  ;  on  the  other  the  most  exquisite  sense  of  beauty,  united 
Avith  a  command  over  all  the  resources  of  lansuao-e,  in  their  vivid 
and  musical  expression,  —  these  are  the  great  distinguishing  char- 
acteristics of  Spenser's  poetry.  VVliat  of  passion  is  in  it  lies  mostly 
in  the  melody  of  the  verse  ;  but  that  is  often  thrilling  and  subduing 
in  the  highest  degree.  Its  moral  tone,  also,  is  very  captivating: 
a  soul  of  nobleness,  gentle  and  tender  as  the  spirit  of  its  own 
chivalry,  modulates  every  cadence. 

Spenser's  extraordinary  faculty  of  vision-seeing  and  picture- 
drawing  can  fail  to  strike  none  of  his  readers  ;  but  he  will  not 
be  adequately  appreciated  or  enjoyed  by  those  who  regard  verse 
either  as  a  non-essential  or  as  a  very  subordinate  element  of 
poetry.  Such  minds,  however,  must  miss  half  the  charm  of  all 
poetry.  Not  only  all  that  is  purely  sensuous  in  poetry  must 
escape  them,  but  likewise  all  the  pleasurable  excitement  that 
lies  in  the  harmonious  accordance  of  the  musical  expression  witli 
the  informing  idea  or  feeling,  and  in  the  additional  force  or  bril- 
liancy that  in  such  inter-union  is  communicated  by  the  one  to  the 
other.  All  beauty  is  dependent  upon  form  ;  other  things  may 
often  enter  into  the  beautiful,  but  this  is  the  one  thing  that  can 
never  be  dispensed  witli  ;  all  other  ingredients,  as  they  must  be 
contained  by,  so  must  be  conti'olled  by  this  ;  and  the  only  thing 
that  standing  alone  may  constitute  the  beautiful  is  form  or  outline. 
Accordingly,  whatever  addresses  itself  to  or  is  suited  to  gratify  the 
imafrination  takes  this  character  :  it  falls  into  more  or  less  of  recu- 
hirity  and  measure.     IMore  pas^;ion  is  of  all  tlungs  the  most  unmeas- 

S'OL.  I.  6  7 


530  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

ured  and  irregular,  naturally  the  most  opposed  of  all  things  to 
form.  But  in  that  state  it  is  also  wholly  untitted  for  the  purposes 
of  art ;  before  it  can  become  imaginative  in  any  artistic  sense  it 
must  have  put  off  its  original  merely  volcanic  character,  and  worn 
itself  into  something  of  measure  and  music.  Thus  all  impassioned 
composition  is  essentially  melodious,  in  a  higher  or  lower  degree  ; 
measured  language  is  the  appropriate  and  natural  expression  of 
passion  or  deep  feeling  operating  artistically  in  writing  or  speech. 
The  highest  and  most  perfect  kind  of  measured  language  is  verse  ; 
and  passion  expressing  itself  in  verse  is  what  is  properly  called 
poetry.  Take  away  the  verse,  and  in  most  cases  you  take  away 
half  the  poetry,  sometimes  much  more.  The  verse,  in  truth,  is 
only  one  of  several  things  by  the  aid  of  which  the  passion  seeks  to 
give  itself  effective  expression,  or  by  which  the  thought  is  endowed 
with  additional  animation  or  beauty  ;  nay,  it  is  only  one  ingredient 
of  the  musical  expression  of  the  thought  or  passion.  If  the  verse 
may  be  dispensed  with,  so  likewise  upon  the  same  principle  may 
every  decoration  of  the  sentiment  or  statement,  everything  else 
that  would  do  more  than  convey  the  bare  fact.  Let  the  experi- 
ment be  tried,  and  ^ee  how  it  will  answer.  Take  a  single  instance. 
"  Immediately  through  the  obscurity  a  great  number  of  flags  were 
seen  to  be  raised,  all  richl_y  colored":  out  of  these  words,  no  doubt, 
the  reader  or  hearer  might,  after  some  meditation,  extract  the  con- 
ception of  a  very  imposing  scene.  But,  although  they  intimate 
with  sufficient  exactness  and  distinctness  the  same  literal  fact,  they 
are  nevertheless  the  deadest  prose  compared  with  Milton's  glorious 
words :  — 

"  All  in  a  moment  through  the  gloom  were  seen 

Ten  tliousand  banners  rise  into  the  air, 

With  orient  colours  waving." 

And  so  it  would  happen  in  every  other  case  in  which  true  poetry 
was  divested  of  its  musical  expression  :  a  part,  and  it  might  be  the 
greater  part,  of  its  life,  beauty,  and  effect,  would  always  be  lost ; 
and  it  would,  in  truth,  cease  to  be  what  is  distinctively  called  poe- 
try or  song,  of  which  verse  is  as  nmch  one  of  the  necessary  con- 
stituents as  passion  or  imagination  itself.  Those  who  dispute  this 
will  never  be  able  to  prove  more  than  that  their  own  enjoyment  of 
the  sensuous  j)art  of  poetry,  which  is  really  that  in  which  its  pecu 
liar  character  resides,  is  limited  or  feeble  ;  which  it  may  very  well 
be  in  minds  otherwise  highly  gif\ed,  and  e*^en  endowed  with  con- 


SPENSlsK.  531 

sjderable  Imaginative  power.  The  feeling  of  the  merely  beautiful, 
hoAvever,  or  of  beauty  unimpregnated  by  something  of  a  moral 
spirit  or  meaning,  is  not  Hkely  in  such  minds  to  be  very  deep  or 
strong.  High  art,  therefore,  is  not  their  proper  region,  in  any  of 
its  departments.  In  poetry  they  will  probably  not  very  greatly 
admire  or  enjoy  either  Spenser  or  Milton  —  and  perhaps  would 
prefer  Paradise  Lost  in  the  prose  version  which  Osborne  the  book- 
seller in  the  last  century  got  a  gentleman  of  Oxford  to  execute  for 
the  use  of  readers  to  whom  the  sense  was  rather  obscured  by  the 
verse. 

Passing  over  several  of  the  great  passages  towards  the  com- 
mencement of  the  poem  —  such  as  the  description  of  Queen  Luci- 
fera  and  her  Six  Counsellors  in  the  Fourth  Canto  of  the  First 
Book,  that  of  the  visit  of  the  Witch  Duessa  to  Hell  in  the  Fifth, 
and  that  of  the  Cave  of  Despair  in  the  Ninth  —  which  are  proba- 
bly more  familiarly  known  to  the  generality  of  readers,  we  will 
give  as  our  first  specimen  of  the  Fairy  Queen  the  escape  of  the 
Enchanter  Archimage  from  Bragadoccio  and  his  man  Trompart, 
and  tlie  introduction  and  description  of  Belphoeb(.',  in  the  Third 
Canto  of  Book  Second  :  — 

He  stayed  not  for  more  bidding,  but  away 
Was  sudden  vanished  out  of  his  sight : 
The  northern  wind  his  wings  did  broad  display 
At  his  command,  and  reared  him  up  light, 
From  off  tlie  earth  to  take  his  airy  flight. 
They  looked  about,  but  nowhere  could  espy 
Tract  of  his  foot ;  then  dead  through  great  affright 
They  both  nigh  were,  and  each  bade  other  fly  ; 
Both  fled  at  once,  ne  ever  back  returned  eye  ; 

Till  that  they  come  unto  a  forest  green. 

In  which  they  shrowd  themselves  from  causeless  fear ; 

Yet  fear  them  follows  still,  whereso  they  been  ; 

Each  trembling  leaf  and  whistling  wind  they  hear 

As  ghastly  bug  ^  does  greatly  them  afear  ; 

Yet  both  do  strive  their  fearfulness  to  feign.^ 

At  last  they  heard  a  horn,  that  shrilled  clear 

Throughout  the  wood,  that  echoed  again. 

And  made  the  forest  ring,  as  it  would  rive  in  twain. 

^  Bugbear.  ^  Conceal. 


532  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AXD   LANGUAGE. 

Eft  ^  through  the  thick  they  heard  one  rudely  rush, 

Witli  noise  whereof  he  from  his  lofty  steed 

Down  fell  to  ground,  and  crept  into  a  bush, 

To  hide  his  coward  head  from  dying  dreed  ; 

But  Trompart  stoutly  stayed,  to  taken  heed 

Of  what  might  hap.     Eftsoon  there  stepped  foorth 

A  goodly  lady  clad  in  hunter's  weed. 

That  seemed  to  be  a  woman  of  great  worth. 

And  by  her  stately  portance  -  born  of  heavenly  birth. 

Her  face  so  fair  as  flesh  it  seemed  not, 
But  heavenly  pourtrait  of  bright  angel's  hue, 
Clear  as  the  sky,  withouten  blame  or  blot, 
Througli  goodly  mixture  of  complexions  due  ; 
And  in  her  cheeks  the  vermeil  red  did  shew 
Like  roses  in  a  bed  of  lillies  shed, 
The  wliich  ambrosial  odours  from  them  threw, 
And  gazers'  sense  with  double  pleasure  fed, 
Able  to  heal  the  sick,  and  to  revive  the  dead. 

In  l)er  fair  eyes  two  living  lamps  did  flame. 

Kindled  above  at  the  hi^avenly  Maker's  light. 

And  darted  fiery  beams  out  of  the  same. 

So  passing  persant  and  so  wondrous  bright 

That  quite  bereaved  the  rash  beholder's  sight : 

In  them  the  blinded  god  his  lustful  fire 

To  kindle  oft  assayed,  but  had  no  might ; 

For  with  dread  majesty  and  awful  ire 

She  broke  his  wanton  darts,  and  quenched  base  desire. 

Her  ivory  forehead,  full  of  bounty  brave, 

Like  a  broad  table  did  itself  dispread 

For  Love  his  lofty  triumphs  to  engrave, 

And  write  the  battles  of  his  great  godhead  : 

All  good  and  honour  might  therein  be  read, 

For  tliere  their  dwelling  was  ;  and,  when  she  spake, 

Sw(-et  words  like  dropping  honey  she  did  shed, 

And  twixt  the  pearls  and  rubins '  softly  brake 

A  silver  sound,  that  heavenly  music  seemed  to  make. 

Upon  her  eyelids  many  graces  sate, 
Under  the  shadow  of  her  even  brows, 

»  Soon.  "^  Carriiige.  '  Rubies. 


SPENSER.  582 

Working  belgardes  ^  and  amorous  retrate  ;  ' 

And  every  one  her  with  a  grace  endows, 

And  every  one  with  meekness  to  her  bows : 

So  glorious  mirror  of  celestial  grace, 

And  sovereign  moniment  of  mortal  vows, 

How  shall  frail  pen  descrive  ^  her  heavenly  face, 

For  fear  through  want  of  skill  her  beauty  to  disgrace  ? 

So  fair,  and  thousand  thousand  times  moi'e  fair, 
She  seemed,  when  she  presented  was  to  sight ; 
And  was  yclad,  for  heat  of  scorching  air, 
All  in  a  silken  camus  *  lilly  white, 
Purfled  *  upon  with  many  a  folded  plight,* 
Which  all  above  besprinkled  was  throughout 
With  golden  aigulets,  that  glistened  bright, 
Like  twinkling  stars  ;  and  all  the  skirt  about 
Was  hemmed  with  golden  fringe. 

Below  her  ham  her  weed  ^  did  somewliat  train  ;  * 

And  her  straight  legs  most  bravely  were  embailed  ' 

In  gilden  ^^  buskins  of  costly  cordwain,^^ 

All  barred  with  golden  bends,  which  were  entailed  ** 

With  curious  anticks,^^  and  full  fair  aumailed  ;  ^* 

Before  they  fastened  were  under  her  knee 

In  a  rich  jewel,  and  therein  entrailed  ^* 

The  ends  of  all  the  knots,  that  none  inight  see 

How  they  within  their  foldings  close  enwrapped  be. 

Like  two  fair  marble  pillars  they  were  seen, 
Which  do  the  temple  of  the  gods  support. 
Whom  all  the  people  deck  with  girlonds  ^'  green, 
And  honour  in  their  festival  resoit ; 
Those  same  with  stately  grace  and  princely  port 
She  taught  to  tread,  when  she  herself  would  grace ; 
But  with  the  woody  nymphs  when  she  did  sport. 
Or  when  the  flying  libbard  "  she  did  chase. 
She  could  them  nimbly  move,  and  after  fly  apace. 

And  in  her  hand  a  sharp  boar-spear  she  held. 
And  at  her  back  a  bow  and  quiver  gay 

1  Beautiful  looks.  ^  Aspect.  ^  Describe.  *  Thin  gown. 

6  Gathered.  ''  Plait.  *  "^  Dress.  ^  Hang. 

^  Enclosed.  ^^  Gilded.  ^i  Spanish  leather.  ^^  Engraved,  marked 

1^  Figures.  ^*  Enamelled.  ^^  Interwoven.  ^^  Garlands. 

^^  Leopard. 


.•)34  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Stuffed  with  steel-headed  darts,  wherewith  she  quelled 

The  savage  beasts  in  her  victorious  play, 

Knit  with  a  golden  baldric,  which  forelay 

Athwart  her  snowy  breast,  and  did  divide 

Her  dainty  paps  ;  which,  like  young  fruit  in  May, 

Now  little,  gan  to  swell,  and,  being  tied. 

Through  her  thin  weed  their  places  only  signified. 

Her  yellow  locks,  crisped  like  golden  wire, 

About  her  shoulders  weren  loosely  shed, 

And,  when  the  Avind  amongst  them  did  inspire, 

They  waved  like  a  penon  wide  dispread, 

And  low  behind  her  back  were  scattered  ; 

And,  whether  art  it  were  or  heedless  hap, 

As  through  the  flowering  forest  rash  she  fled, 

In  her  rude  hairs  sweet  flowers  themselves  did  lap. 

And  flourishing  fresh  leaves  and  blossoms  did  enwrap. 

Such  as  Diana,  by  the  sandy  shore 

Of  swift  Eurotas,  or  on  Cynthus  green. 

Where  all  the  nymphs  have  her  unwares  forlore,* 

Wandereth  alone,  with  bow  and  arrows  keen, 

To  seek  her  game  ;  or  as  that  famous  queen 

Of  Amazons,  whom  Pyrrhus  did  destroy, 

The  day  that  first  of  Priam  she  was  seen 

Did  show  herself  in  great  triumphant  joy, 

To  succour  the  weak  state  of  sad  afilicted  Troy. 

Our  next  extract  shall  be  part  of  the  Masque  of  Cupid  displayed 
to  Britomart  the  Fair  and  Bold,  the  representative  of  Chastity, 
in  the  house  of  the  enchanter  Busyrane,  fi-om  the  Twelfth  Canto 
of  the  Third  Book  ;  being  the  conclusion  of  the  first-published 
pDrtion  of  the  poem  :  — 

All  suddenly  a  stormy  whirlwind  blew 
Throughout  the  house,  that  clapped  every  door, 
With  which  that  iron  wicket  open  flew 
As  it  with  mighty  levers  had  been  tore  ; 
And  forth  issued,  as  on  the  ready  floor 
Of  some  theatre,  a  grave  personage 
That  in  his  hand  a  branch  of  laurel  bore, 
With  comely  haveour  and  count'nance  sage, 
Yclad  in  costly  garments,  fit  for  tragic  stage. 

1  Forsaken. 


SPENSER.  53£ 

Proceeding  to  the  midst  he  still  did  stand, 
As  if  in  mind  he  somewhat  had  to  say, 
And,  to  the  vulgar  beckoning  with  his  hand, 
In  sign  of  silence,  as  to  hear  a  play, 
By  lively  actions  he  gan  bewray 
Some  argument  of  matter  passioned  ; 
Which  done,  he  back  retired  soft  away, 
And,  passing  by,  his  name  discovered. 
Ease,  on  his  robe  in  golden  letters  cyphered. 

The  noble  maid  still  standing  all  this  viewed. 
And  mervelled  at  his  strange  intendiment : 
With  that  a  joyous  fellowship  issued 
Of  minstrels  making  goodly  merriment. 
With  wanton  bards  and  rhymers  impudent ; 
All  which  together  sung  full  cheerfully 
A  lay  of  love's  delight  with  sweet  consent ; 
After  whom  marched  a  jolly  company. 
In  manner  of  a  masque,  enranged  orderly. 

The  whiles  a  most  delicious  harmony 

In  full  strange  notes  was  sweetly  heard  to  sound, 

That  the  rare  sweetness  of  the  melody 

The  feeble  senses  wholly  did  confound. 

And  the  frail  soul  in  deep  delight  nigh  drowned ; 

And,  when  it  ceased,  shrill  trumpets  loud  did  bray, 

That  their  report  did  far  away  rebound  ; 

And,  when  they  ceased,  it  gan  again  to  play. 

The  whiles  the  masquers  marched  forth  in  trim  array. 

The  first  was  Fancy,  like  a  lovely  boy, 

Of  rare  aspect,  and  beauty  without  peer, 

Matchable  either  to  that  imp  of  Troy 

Whom  Jove  did  love,  and  chose  his  cup  to  bear. 

Or  that  same  dainty  lad  which  was  so  dear 

To  great  Alcides,  that  whenas  he  died 

He  wailed  womanlike  with  many  a  tear, 

And  every  wood  and  every  valley  wide 

He  filled  with  Hylas'  name  ;  the  nymphs  eke  Hylas  cried. 

His  gai-ment  neither  was  of  silk  nor  say, 
But  painted  plumes  in  goodly  order  dight, 
Like  as  the  sunburnt  Indians  do  array 


536  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Their  tawny  bodies  in  their  proudest  plight : 

As  those  same  plumes  so  seemed  he  vain  and  li"-ht. 

That  by  his  gait  might  ea;5ily  appear  ; 

For  still  he  fared  ^  as  dancing  in  delight, 

And  in  his  hand  a  windy  fan  did  beai-, 

That  in  the  idle  air  he  moved  still  here  and  there. 

And  him  beside  marched  amorous  Desire, 

Who  seemed  of  riper  yeai-s  than  the  other  swain, 

Yet  was  that  other  swain  this  elder's  sire, 

And  gave  him  being,  common  to  tliem  twain  : 

His  garment  was  disguised  very  vain. 

And  his  embroidered  bonnet  sat  awry  ; 

'TAvixt  both  his  hands  few  sparks  he  close  did  strara. 

Which  still  he  blew  and  kindled  busily, 

That  soon  they  life  conceived,  and  fortli  in  flames  did  fly, 

Next  after  him  went  Doubt,  who  was  yclad 

In  a  discoloured  coat  of  strange  disguise, 

That  at  his  back  a  broad  capuccio  had. 

And  sleeves  dependent  Albanese-wise  ; 

He  looked  askew  with  his  mistrustful  eyes, 

And  nicely  trod,  as  thorns  lay  in  liis  way. 

Or  that  the  floor  to  shrink  he  did  avize  ;  - 

And  on  a  broken  reed  he  still  did  stay 

His  feeble  steps,  which  shrunk  when  hard  thereon  he  lay. 

With  him  went  Danger,  clothed  in  ragged  weed 
Made  of  beiu-'s  skin,  that  him  more  dreadful  made ; 
Yet  liis  own  face  was  dreadful,  ne  did  need 
Strange  horror  to  delbrm  his  grisly  shade : 
A  net  in  the  one  hand,  and  a  rusty  blade 
In  the  otlier  was,  this  mischief,  that  mishap ; 
With  the  one  his  Iocs  he  threatened  to  invade, 
With  the  other  he  his  friends  meant  to  enwrap  ; 
For  whom  he  could  not  kill  he  practised  to  entrap. 

Next  liim  was  Fear,  all  armed  from  top  to  toe. 
Yet  thought  himself  not  safe  enough  thereby, 
But  feared  each  shadow  moving  to  or  fro  ; 
And  liis  own  arms  when  glittei-ing  he  did  spy, 
Or  clashing  heard,  he  fast  away  did  fly, 
^  Moved  forward.  '^  Think. 


SPENSER.  587 

As  aslies  pale  of  hue,  and  winged-heeled  ; 
And  evermoie  on  Danger  fixed  his  eye, 
Gainst  whom  he  always  bent  a  brazen  shield. 
Which  his  right  hand  unarmed  fearfully  did  wield. 

With  him  went  Hope  in  rank,  a  handsome  maid, 
Of  cheerful  look,  and  lovely  to  behold  ; 
In  silken  samite  ^  she  was  light  arrayed, 
And  her  fair  locks  were  woven  up  in  gold  ; 
She  always  smiled,  and  in  her  hand  did  hold 
An  holy-water-sprinkle,  dipped  in  dew, 
With  which  she  sprinkled  favours  manifold 
On  whom  she  list,  and  did  great  liking  shew. 
Great  liking  unto  many,  but  true  love  to  few. 

And  after  them  Dissemblance  and  Suspect 

Marched  in  one  rank,  yet  an  unequal  pair  ; 

For  she  was  gentle  and  of  mild  aspect, 

Courteous  to  all,  and  seeming  debonair, 

Goodly  adorned,  and  exceeding  fair ; 

Yet  was  that  all  but  painted  and  purloined. 

And  her  bright  brows  were  decked  with  borrowed  hair ; 

Her  deeds  were  forged,  and  her  words  false-coined  : 

And  always  in  her  hand  two  clews  of  silk  she  twined : 

But  he  was  foul,  ill-favoured,  and  grim, 

Under  his  eyebrows  looking  still  askance  ; 

And,  ever  as  Dissemblance  laughed  on  him. 

He  lowered  on  her  with  dangerous  eye-glance, 

Showing  his  nature  in  his  countenance ; 

His  rolling  eyes  did  never  rest  in  place, 

But  walked  each  where  for  fear  of  hid  mischance, 

Holding  a  lattice  still  before  his  face. 

Through  which  he  still  did  peep  as  forward  he  did  pace. 

Next  him  went  Grief  and  Fury,  matched  yfere;^ 

Grief  all  in  sable  sorrowfully  clad, 

Down  hanging  his  dull  head  with  heavy  cheer, 

Yet  inly  being  more  than  seeming  sad  ; 

A  pair  of  pincers  in  his  hand  he  had. 

With  which  he  pinched  many  to  the  heart. 

That  from  thenceforth  a  wretched  life  they  lad^ 

1  Satin.  2  Together.  «  £ed. 

VOL.   I.  68 


538  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

In  wilful  languor  and  consuming  smart, 

Dying  each  day  with  inward  wounds  of  Dolour's  dart. 

But  Fuiy  was  full  ill  apparelled 
In  rags,  that  naked  nigh  she  did  appear. 
With  ghastly  looks  and  dreadful  drearihead  ; 
For  from  her  back  her  garments  she  did  tear, 
And  from  her  head  oft  rent  her  snarled  ^  hair : 
In  her  right  hand  a  firebrand  she  did  toss 
About  her  head ;  still  roaming  here  and  there, 
As  a  dismayed  deer  in  chace  embost,'' 
Forgetful  of  his  safety,  hath  his  right  way  lost. 

After  them  went  Displeasure  and  Pleasance  ; 

He  looking  lumpish  and  full  sullen  sad, 

And  hanging  down  his  heavy  countenance  ; 

She  cheerful,  fresh,  and  full  of  joyance  glad. 

As  if  no  sorrow  she  ne  felt  ne  drad,^ 

That  evil-matched  pair  they  seemed  to  be  : 

An  angry  wasp  the  one  in  a  vial  had, 

The  other  in  her's  an  honey  lady-bee. 

Thus  marched  these  six  couples  forth  in  fair  degree. 

After  all  these  there  marched  a  most  fair  dame, 
Led  of  two  grisly  villains  ;  the  one  Despite, 
The  other  cleped  *  Cruelty  by  name  : 
She,  doleful  lady,  like  a  dreaiy  sprite 
Called  by  strong  charms  out  of  eternal  night. 
Had  Death's  own  image  figured  in  her  face. 
Full  of  sad  signs,  fearful  to  living  sight ; 
Yet  in  that  horror  shewed  a  seemly  grace, 
And  with  her  feeble  feet  did  move  a  comely  pace. 

Her  breast  all  naked,  as  nett  ivory 

Without  adorn  of  gold  or  silver  bright. 

Wherewith  the  craftsman  wonts  it  beautify, 

Of  her  due  honour  was  despoiled  quite, 

And  a  wide  wound  therein  (O  rueful  sight !) 

Entrenched  deep  with  knife  accursed  keen, 

Yet  freshly  bleeding  forth  *  her  fainting  sprite, 

(The  work  of  cruel  hand)  was  to  be  seen. 

That  dyed  in  sanguine  red  her  skin  all  snowy  clean, 

>  Entangled,  knotted.  ^  Hard  run,  and  wearied  out.  ''  Dreaded, 

*  Called.  *  Out  of,  fortii  from. 


SPENSER.  539 

At  that  wide  orifice  her  trembling  heart 
Was  drawn  forth,  and  in  silver  basin  laid, 
Quite  through  transfixed  with  a  deadly  dart, 
And  in  her  blood  yet  steaming  fresh  embayed  ;  * 
And  those  tAvo  villains  (which  her  steps  upstayed, 
When  her  weak  feet  could  scarcely  her  sustain, 
And  fading  vital  powers  gan  to  fade  ^) 
Her  forward  still  with  torture  did  constrain, 
And  ever  more  increased  her  consuming  pain. 

Next  after  her  the  winged  God  himself 
Came  riding  on  a  lion  ravenous. 
Taught  to  obey  the  menage  of  that  elf, 
That  man  and  beast  with  power  imperious 
Subdueth  to  his  kingdom  tyrannous  : 
His  blindfold  eyes  he  bade  awhile  unbind. 
That  his  proud  spoil,  of  that  same  dolorous 
Fair  dame,  he  might  behold  in  perfect  kind  ; 
Which  seen,  he  much  rejoiced  in  his  cruel  mind. 

Of  which  full  proud,  himself  uprearing  high, 

He  looked  round  about  with  stern  disdain, 

And  did  survey  his  goodly  company,  ' 

And  marshalled  the  evil-ordered  train  ; 

With  that  the  darts  which  his  right  hand  did  strain 

Full  dreadfully  he  shook,  that  all  did  quake, 

And  clapped  on  high  his  coloured  winges  twain, 

That  all  his  meny  ^  it  afraid  did  make  ; 

Tho,*  blinding  him  again,  his  way  he  forth  did  take. 

Behind  him  was  Reproach,  Repentance,  Shame  ; 
Reproach  the  first.  Shame  next.  Repent  behind : 
Repentance  feeble,  sorrowful,  and  lame  ; 
Reproach  despiteful,  careless,  and  unkind  ; 
Shame  most  ill-favoured,  bestial,  and  blind : 
Shame  loured.  Repentance  sighed.  Reproach  did  scold : 
Reproach  sharp  stings.  Repentance  whips  entwined, 
Shame  burning  brand-irons  in  her  hand  did  hold  : 
All  three  to  each  unlike,  yet  all  made  in  one  mould. 

1  Bathed. 

*  It  may  be  doubted  if  this  be  the  right  word.     Perhaps  it  should  be  "  gan  t<j 
fade  "  —  that  is,  to  pass  away. 
^  Company,  attendants.  *  Then. 


640  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

And  after  them  a  rude  confused  route 

Of  persons  flocked,  whose  names  is  hard  to  read : 

Amongst  them  was  stern  Strife,  and  Anger  stout, 

Unquiet  Care,  and  fond  Untliriftihead, 

Lewd  Loss  of  Time,  and  Sorrow  seeming-dead, 

Inconstant  Change,  and  false  Disloyalty, 

Consuming  Riotise,  and  guilty  Dread 

Of  heavenly  vengeance,  faint  Infirmity, 

Vile  Poverty,  and,  lastly,  Death  with  Infamy. 

There  were  full  many  moe  ^  like  maladies, 

Whose  names  and  natures  I  note  readen  '^  well ; 

So  many  moe  as  there  be  fantasies 

In  wavering  women's  wit,  that  none  can  tell. 

Or  pains  in  love,  or  punishments  in  hell ; 

All  which  disguised  marched  in  masquing  wise 

About  the  chamber  by  the  damozell, 

And  then  returned,  having  marched  tlu-ice, 

Into  the  inner  room,  from  whence  they  first  did  rise. 

A  volume  of  poetry  sucli  as  this,  Spenser  might  fitly,  and  with 
some  pride  in  the  worth  of  the  oft'ering,  as  well  as  "  in  all  humility, 
dedicate,  present,  and  consecrate,  to  the  Most  High,  Mighty,  and 
Magnificent  Empress,  Elizabeth,  to  live  with  the  eternity  of  her 
fame."  The  latter  Books'of  the  Fairy  Queen  have  less  continuity 
of  splendor  than  the  three  first  ;  but,  besides  innumerable  single 
stanzas  and  short  passages  of  exquisite  beauty,  they  contain  not  a 
few  pictures  on  a  more  extended  canvas,  which  must  be  reckoned 
among  the  most  remarkable  in  the  work.  Among  others  may  be 
mentioned  those  of  the  Temple  of  Venus  in  the  Tenth,  and  of 
the  gathering  of  the  rivers  at  the  marriage  of  the  Thames  and  the 
Medway,  in  the  Eleventh  Canto  of  the  Fourth  Book  ;  those  of 
tlie  night  spent  by  Sir  Caledon  among  the  shejiherds  in  the  Ninth, 
and  of  the  Dance  of  the  Graces  in  the  Tenth  Canto  of  Book 
Fifth  ;  and  that  of  the  procession  of  the  Seasons  in  the  second  of 
the  Two  Cantos  of  Mutability.  But,  passing  over  these  more 
brilliant  displays  of  an  inventive  and  florid  fancy,  we  will  select, 
as  our  samj)le  of  this  portion  of  the  poem,  one  of  its  more  soberly 
colored  passages,  in  which,  nevertheless,  there  may  perhaps  be 
thotight  to  be  as  much  of  "  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine," 
1  More.  '^  Know  not  (wot  not)  to  read. 


SPENSER.  541 

though  otherwise  exercised,  as  in  any  of  those  we  have  yet  quoted. 
The  following,  from  the  Second  Canto  of  the  Fifth  Book,  might 
seem  to  be  a  satire  written  in  our  own  day  on  the  folly  and  mad- 
ness of  seventy  years  ago,  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  it  was 
published  two  centuries  before  the  events  which  it  so  strikingly 
prefigures  :  — 

There  they  beheld  a  mighty  giant  stand 

Upon  a  rock,  and  holding  forth  on  high 

An  huge  great  pair  of  balance  in  his  hand, 

With  which  he  boasted,  in  his  surquedry,^ 

That  all  the  woi-ld  he  would  weigh  e(jually, 

If  aught  he  had  the  same  to  counterpoise ; 

For  want  whereof  he  weighed  vanity, 

And  filled  his  balance  full  of  idle  toys ; 

Yet  was  admired  much  of  fools,  women,  and  boys. 

He  said  that  he  would  all  the  earth  uptake, 

And  all  the  sea,  divided  each  from  either ; 

So  Avould  he  of  the  fire  one  balance  make. 

And  one  of  the  air,  without  or  wind  or  weather ; 

Then  would  he  balance  heaven  and  hell  together, 

And  all  that  did  within  them  all  contain, 

Of  all  whose  weight  he  would  not  miss  a  feather; 

And  look,  what  surplus  did  of  each  remain, 

He  would  to  his  own  part  restore  the  same  agaiu.- 

For  why,  he  said,  they  all  unequal  were ; 
And  had  encroached  upon  other's  sliare  ; 
Like  as  the  sea  (which  plain  he  showed  there) 
Had  worn  the  earth  ;  so  did  the  fire  the  air ; 
So  all  the  rest  did  other's  parts  impaii- ; 
And  so  were  realms  and  nations  run  awry  ; 
All  which  he  undertook  for  to  repair, 
In  sort  as  they  were  formed  anciently, 
And  all  things  would  reduce  unto  equality. 

Therefore  the  vulgar  did  about  him  flock, 
And  cluster  thick  unto  his  leasings  vain. 
Like  foolish  flies  about  an  honey-crock, 
In  hope  by  him  great  benefit  to  gain, 
And  uncontrolled  freedom  to  obtain. 

'  Pride,  presumption. 


4)42  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE 

All  which  wheu  Ai'tegal  did  see,  and  hear 

How  he  misled  the  simple  people's  train, 

In  'sdainful  wise  he  drew  unto  him  near, 

And  thus  unto  him  spake,  without  regard  or  fear : 

"  Thou  that  presum'st  to  weigh  the  world  anew, 

And  all  things  to  an  equal  to  restore. 

Instead  of  right,  meseems,  great  wrong  dost  shew, 

And  far  above  thy  force's  pitch  to  soar : 

For,  ere  thou  limit  what  is  less  or  more 

In  every  thing,  thou  oughtest  first  to  know 

What  was  the  poise  of  every  part  of  yore, 

And  look  then  how  much  it  doth  overflow 

Or  fail  thereof ;  so  much  is  more  than  just,  I  trow. 

"  For  at  the  first  they  all  created  were 

In  goodly  measure  by  their  Maker's  might, 

And  weighed  out  in  balances  so  near 

That  not  a  dram  was  missing  of  their  right ; 

The  eai'th  was  in  the  middle  centre  pight,* 

In  which  it  doth  immovable  abide, 

Hemmed  in  with  waters  like  a  wall  in  sight,'^ 

And  they  with  air,  that  not  a  drop  can  slide  ; 

All  which  the  heavens  contain,  and  in  their  courses  guide. 

"  Such  heavenly  justice  doth  among  them  reign, 

That  every  one  do  know  their  certain  bound, 

In  which  they  do  these  many  years  remain, 

And  'mongst  them  all  no  change  hath  yet  been  found ; 

But,  if  thou  now  should'st  weigh  them  new  in  pound, 

We  are  not  sure  they  would  so  long  remain  ; 

All  change  is  perilous,  and  all  chance  unsound ; 

Therefore  leave  off  to  weigh  them  all  again. 

Till  we  may  be  assured  they  shall  their  course  retain." 

"  Thou  foolish  elf,"  said  then  the  Giant  wroth, 

"  See'st  not  how  badly  all  things  present  be. 

And  each  estate  quite  out  of  order  goth  ? 

The  sea  itself  dost  thou  not  plainly  see 

Encroach  upon  the  land  there  under  thee  ? 

And  the  earth  itself,  how  daily  it's  increased 

By  all  that  dying  to  it  turned  be  ? 

Were  it  not  good  tliat  wrong  were  then  surceased, 

And  from  the  most  that  some  were  given  to  the  least  ? 

1  Pitched,  fixed.  ^  Perhaps,  site. 


SPENSEK.  543 

"  Therefore  I  will  throw  down  these  mounttxins  high. 

And  make  them  level  with  the  lowly  plain  ; 

These  towering  rocks,  which  reach  unto  the  sky, 

I  will  thrust  down  into  the  deepest  main, 

And,  as  they  were,  them  equalize  again. 

Tyrants,  that  make  men  subject  to  their  law, 

I  will  suppress,  that  they  no  more  may  reign. 

And  lordings  curb  that  commons  over-awe, 

And  all  the  wealth  of  rich  men  to  the  poor  will  draw.* 

"  Of  things  unseen  how  canst  thou  deem  aright," 

Then  answered  the  righteous  Artegal, 

"  Sith  thou  misdeem'st  so  much  of  things  in  sight  ? 

What  though  the  sea  with  waves  continual 

Do  eat  the  earth,  it  is  no  more  at  all, 

Ne  is  the  earth  the  less  or  loseth  aught ; 

For  whatsoever  from  one  place  doth  fall, 

Is  with  the  tide  unto  another  brought ; 

For  there  is  nothing  lost  that  may  be  found  if  sought. 

"  Likewise  the  earth  is  not  augmented  more 

By  all  that  dying  unto  it  do  fade  ; 

For  of  the  earth  they  formed  were  of  yore : 

However  gay  their  blossom  or  their  blade 

Do  flourish  now,  they  into  dust  shall  vade  ;  ^ 

What  wrong  then  is  it  if  that  when  they  die 

They  turn  to  that  whereof  they  first  were  made  ? 

All  in  the  power  of  their  great  Maker  lie  ; 

All  creatures  must  obey  the  voice  of  the  Most  High* 

"  They  live,  they  die,  like  as  he  doth  ordain, 

Ne  ever  any  asketh  reason  why. 

The  hills  do  not  the  lowly  dales  disdain  ; 

The  dales  do  not  the  lofty  hills  envy. 

He  maketh  kings  to  sit  in  sovereignty  ; 

He  maketh  subjects  to  their  power  obey ; 

He  pulleth  down,  he  setteth  up  on  high  ; 

He  gives  to  this,  from  that  he  takes  away  ; 

For  all  we  have  is  his  ;  what  he  list  do  he  may. 

"  Whatever  thing  is  done  by  him  is  done, 
Ne  any  may  his  mighty  will  withstand  ; 
Ne  any  may  his  sovereign  power  shun, 
^  Pass  away. 


544  ENGLISH    LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

Ne.  loose  that  he  hntli  bound  with  stedfost  band  ; 
In  vain,  therefore,  dost  thou  now  take  in  hand 
"  To  call  to  count,  or  weigli  his  works  anew, 
AVhose  counsels'  depth  thou  canst  not  understand, 
Sith  of  things  subject  to  thy  daily  view 
'J'hou  dost  not  know  the  causes  nor  their  courses  due. 

"  For  take  thy  balance,  if  thou  be  so  Avise, 

And  weigh  the  wind  that  under  heaven  doth  blow  ; 

Or  weigh  the  light  that,  in  the  east  doth  rise  ; 

Or  weigh  the  thought  that  from  man's  mind  doth  flow : 

But,  if  the  weight  of  these  thou  canst  not  show, 

Weigh  but  one  word  which  from  thy  lips  doth  fall : 

For  how  canst  thou  those  greater  secrets  know, 

That  dost  not  know  the  least  thing  of  them  all  ? 

Ill  can  he  rule  the  great  that  cannot  reach  the  small." 

Therewith  the  Giant,  much  abashed,  said, 

That  he  of  little  things  made  reckoning  light ; 

Yet  the  least  word  that  ever  could  be  laid 

Within  his  balance  he  could  weigh  aright. 

"  Which  is,"  said  he,  "more  heavy,  then,  in  weight, 

The  rigiit  or  wrong,  the  false  or  else  the  true  ?  " 

He  answered  that  he  would  try  it  straight ; 

So  he  the  words  into  his  balance  threw, 

But  straight  the  winged  words  out  of  his  balance  flew. 

Wroth  Avexed  he  then,  and  said  that  words  were  light, 

Ne  could  within  his  balance  well  abide  ; 

But  he  could  justly  weigh  the  wrong  or  right. 

"  Well,  then,"  said  Artegal,  "let  it  be  tried  ; 

First  in  one  balance  set  the  true  aside." 

He  did  so  first,  and  then  the  false  lie  laid 

In  the  other  scale  ;  but  still  it  down  did  slide. 

And  Ijy  no  mean  could  in  the  weight  be  stayed  ', 

For  by  no  means  the  false  will  with  the  truth  be  weighed 

"  Now  take  the  right  likewise,"  said  Artegale, 

"  And  counternoise  th(!  same  with  so  much  wrons." 

So  first  the  right  lie  ])ut  into  one  scale. 

And  then  the  Giant  strove,  with  puissance  strong, 

To  till  the  other  scale  with  so  much  wrong  ; 

But  all  the  wi-on<is  that  he  therein  could  lay 

Might  it  not  poise  ;  yet  did  he  labour  long, 


SPENSER.  545 

And  swat,  and  chaufed,  and  proved  every  way  ; 

Yet  all  the  wrongs  could  not  a  little  right  downwelgh. 

Which  when  he  saw  he  greatly  gi'ew  in  rage, 

And  almost  would  his  balances  have  broken ; 

But  Artegal  him  fairly  gan  assuage. 

And  said,  "  Be  not  upon  thy  balance  wroken,^ 

For  they  do  nought  but  right  or  wrong  betoken ; 

But  in  the  mind  the  doom  of  right  must  be ; 

And  so  likewise  of  words,  the  which  be  spoken, 

The  ear  must  be  the  balance  to  decree 

And  judge  whether  with  truth  or  falsehood  they  agree. 

"  But  set  the  truth  and  set  the  right  aside, 
For  they  with  wrong  or  falsehood  will  not  fare, 
And  put  two  wrongs  together  to  be  tried. 
Or  else  two  falses,  of  each  equal  share. 
And  then  together  do  them  both  compare ; 
For  truth  is  one,  and  right  is  ever  one." 
So  did  he,  and  then  plain  it  did  appear 
Whetlier  of  them  the  greater  were  attone  ;  ^ 
But  right  sat  in  the  middest  of  the  beam  alone. 

But  he  the  right  from  thence  did  thrust  away, 

For  it  was  not  the  right  which  he  did  seek  ; 

But  rather  strove  extremities  to  weigh, 

The  one  to  diminish,  the  other  for  to  eke, 

For  of  the  mean  he  greatly  did  misleke  ;  ^ 

Whom  when  so  lewdly  minded  Talus  found. 

Approaching  nigh  unto  him  cheek  by  cheek, 

He  shouldered  him  from  off  the  higher  ground, 

And,  down  tlie  rock  him  throwing,  in  the  sea  him  di-owned. 

Like  as  a  ship,  whom  cruel  tempest  drives 

Upon  a  rock  with  horrible  dismay, 

Her  shattered  ribs  in  thousand  pieces  rives. 

And,  spoiling  all  her  gears  and  goodly  ray,^ 

Does  make  herself  misfortune's  piteous  prey  ; 

So  down  the  cliff  the  wretched  Giant  tumbled ; 

His  battered  balances  in  pieces  lay. 

His  timbered  bones  all  broken  rudely  rumbled : 

So  was  the  high-aspiring  with  huge  ruin  humbled. 

1  Revenged.  ^  Taken  all  together.  ^  Mislike. 

*  Array. 
VOL.  I.  69 


54(5  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Tliat  when  the  people,  which  had  thereahout 
Long  waited,  saw  his  sudden  desolation, 
They  gan  ^  together  in  tumultuous  rout, 
And  mutining  to  stir  up  civil  faction,^ 
For  certain  loss  of  so  great  expectation  ; 
For  well  they  hoped  to  have  got  great  good 
And  wondrous  riches  by  his  innovation  ; 
Therefore,  resolving  to  revenge  his  blood, 
They  rose  in  arms,  and  all  in  battle  order  stood. 

In  old  Greece  and  Rome  the  Poet  was  ree;arded  as  a  species  of 
Prophet,  and  called  by  the  same  name  ;  both  were  held  to  be 
alike  di^^nely  inspired  ;  but  there  are  not  many  unveilings  of  the 
distant  fixture  in  poetry  so  remarkable  as  this  anticipation  and.  refti- 
tation  of  the  Liberty  and  Equality  philosophism  of  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  in  the  end  of  the  sixteenth.  Nor  has  the  ker- 
nel of  that  false  pliilosophy  ever  perhaps  been  so  acutely  detected 
as  it  is  in  tliese  verses,  by  the  exposure,  first,  of  the  assumption 
involved  in  the  original  notion  that  equality  is  anywhere  a  law  or 
principle  of  nature  ;  secondly,  of  the  impossibility  of  either  estab- 
lishing true  equality,  or  even  of  ascertaining  its  existence,  by  such 
rude,  superficial,  almost  mechanical  methods  as  human  legislation 
has  alone  at  its  command.  The  essence  or  reality  of  things  will 
not  be  weighed  in  any  scales  which  its  hand  can  hold. 


OTHER   ELIZABETHAN  POETRY. 

In  the  six  or  seven  years  from  1590  to  1596,  what  a  world  of 
wealth  had  thus  been  added  to  our  poetry  by  Spenser  alone  ! 
Avhat  a  difierent  thino;  from  what  it  was  before  had  the  Enojiish 
language  been  made  by  his  writings  to  natives,  to  foreigners,  to 
all  posterity !  But  England  was  now  a  land  of  song,  and  the 
busiest  and  most  productive  age  of  our  poetical  literature  had  fairly 
commenced.  What  are  commonly  called  the  minor  poets  of  the 
Elizabethan  age  are  to  be  coinited  by  hundreds,  and  few  of  them 
are  altogether  without  merit.     If  they  have  nothing  else,  the  least 

^  Perhaps  misprint  for  "ran." 

^  Tlie  reading  of  this  line  may  be  doubted. 


WARNER.  547 

gifted  of  them  have  at  least  something  of  the  freshness  and  airi- 
ness of  that  balmy  morn,  some  tones  caught  from  their  greater 
contemporaries,  some  echoes  of  the  spirit  of  music  that  then  filled 
the  universal  air.  For  the  most  part  the  minor  Elizabethan  poetry 
is  remarkable  for  ingenuity  and  elaboration,  often  carried  to  the 
length  of  quaintness,  both  in  the  thought  and  the  expression  ;  but, 
if  there  be  more  in  it  of  art  than  of  nature,  the  art  is  still  that  of  a 
high  school,  and  always  consists  in  something  more  than  the  mere 
disguising  of  prose  in  the  dress  of  poetry.  If  it  is  sometimes  un- 
natural, it  is  at  least  very  seldom  simply  insipid,  like  much  of  the 
well-sounding  verse  of  more  recent  eras.  The  writers  are  always 
in  earnest,  whether  with  their  nature  or  their  art ;  they  never 
write  from  no  impulse,  and  with  no  object  except  that  of  stringing 
commonplaces  into  rhyme  or  rhythm  ;  even  when  it  is  most  absurd, 
what  they  produce  is  still  fanciful,  or  at  the  least  fantastical.  The 
breath  of  some  sort  of  life  or  other  is  almost  always  in  it.  The 
poorest  of  it  is  distinguished  from  prose  by  something  more  than 
the  mere  sound. 


WARNER. 


The  three  authors  of  the  poems  of  most  pretension,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  Fairy  Queen,  that  appeared  during  the  period  now 
under  review,  are  Warner,  Drayton,  and  Daniel.  William  War- 
ner is  supposed  to  have  been  born  about  the  year  1558  ;  he  died  in 
1609.  He  has  told  us  himself  (in  his  Eleventh  Book,  chapter  62), 
that  his  birthplace  was  London,  and  that  his  father  was  one  of  those 
who  sailed  with  Chancellor  to  Muscovy,  in  1555  :  this,  he  says,  was 
before  he  himself  Avas  born.  Warner's  own  profession  was  the  not 
particularly  poetical  one  of  an  attorney  of  the  Common  Pleas.  Ac- 
cording to  Anthony  Wood,  who  makes  him  to  have  been  a  War- 
wickshire man,  he  had  before  1586  written  several  pieces  of  verse, 
"  whereby  his  name  was  cried  up  among  the  minor  poets ;  "  but 
this  is  probably  a  mistake  ;  none  of  tins  early  poetry  imputed  to 
Warner  is  now  known  to  exist ;  and  in  the  Preface  to  his  Albion's 
England,  he  seems  to  intimate  that  that  was  his  first  performance 
m  verse.  "  Written,"  he  says,  "  have  I  already  in  prose,  aHowed 
f^that  is,  with  the  approbation]    of  some  :  and  now  offer  T  verse, 


548  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

attending' indifferent  censures  "  [impartial  judoments] .  In  his  Ded- 
ication to  Henry  Carey,  the  first  Lord  Hunsdon,  he  speaks  of  a  foi'- 
mer  book,  which  he  had  dedicated  to  the  son  of  that  Lord  —  "  To 
him  that  from  your  honour  deriveth  his  birth."  This,  we  suppose, 
must  be  his  prose  work  entitled  Syrinx,  or  a  Sevenfold  History, 
j)leasant  and  profitable,  comical  and  tragical,  of  which  the  only  edi- 
tion known  to  exist  is  dated  1597,  but  which  was  licensed  in  1584, 
and  was  probably  first  printed  about  that  time.  In  the  Dedication 
to  his  poem  he  explains  the  meaning  of  the  title,  which  is  not  very 
obvious  :  "  This  our  whole  island,"  he  observes,  "  anciently  called 
Britain,  but  more  anciently  Albion,  presently  containing  two  king- 
doms, England  and  Scotland,  is  cause  (right  honourable)  that,  to 
distinguish  the  former,  whose  only  occurrents  [occurrences]  I 
abridge  from  ovir  history,  I  entitle  this  my  book  Albion's  England." 
Albion's  England  first  appeared,  in  thirteen  Books,  in  1586  ;  and 
was  reprinted  in  1589,  in  1592,  in  1596,  in  1597,  and  in  1602.  In 
1606  the  author  added  a  Continuance,  or  continuation,  in  three 
Books ;  and  the  whole  work  was  republished  (without,  however, 
the  last  three  Books  having  been  actually  reprinted)  in  1612.  In 
this  last  edition  it  is  described  on  the  title-page  as  "  now  re\ased, 
and  newly  enlarged  [by  the  author]  a  little  before  his  death."  It 
thus  appears  that,  so  long  as  its  popularity  lasted,  Albion's  England 
was  one  of  the  most  popular  long  poems  ever  written.  But  that 
was  only  for  about  twenty  years  :  although  the  early  portion  of  it 
had  in  less  than  that  time  gone  throuo;h  half  a  dozen  editions,  the 
Continuation,  published  in  1606,  sold  so  indifferently  that  enough 
of  the  impression  still  remained  to  complete  the  book  when  the 
whole  was  republished  in  1612,  and  after  that  no  other  edition  Avas 
ever  called  for,  till  the  poem  was  reprinted  in  Chalmers's  collection 
in  1810.  The  entire  neglect  into  which  it  so  soon  fell,  from  the 
height  of  celebrity  and  popular  favor,  was  probably  brought  about 
by  various  causes.  Warner,  according  to  Anthony  Wood,  was 
ranked  by  his  contemporaries  on  a  level  with  Spenser,  and  they 
were  called  the  Homer  and  Virgil  of  their  age.  If  he  and  Spenser 
were  ever  equally  admired,  it  must  have  been  by  very  different 
classes  of  readers.  Albion's  England  is  undoubtedly  a  work  of 
very  remarkable  talent  of  its  kind.  It  is  in  form  a  history  of  Eng- 
land, or  Southern  Britain,  from  the  Deluge  to  the  reign  of  James 
I.,  but  may  fairly  be  said  to  be,  as  the  title-])age  of  the  last  edition 
des'^ribes  it,  "  not  barren  in  variety  of  inventive  intermixtures," 


WARNER.  549 

Or,  to  use  the  author's  own  words  in  his  Preface,  he  certainly,  as 
he  hopes,  has  no  great  occasion  to  fear  that  he  has  grossly  failed 
"  in  verity,  brevity,  invention,  and  variety,  profitable,  pathetical, 
pithy,  and  pleasant."  In  fact,  it  is  one  of  the  liveliest  and  most 
amusing  poems  ever  written.  Every  striking  event  or  legend  that 
the  old  chronicles  afford  is  seized  hold  of,  and  related  always  clearly, 
often  with  very  considerable  spirit  and  animation.  But  it  is  far 
from  being  a  mere  compilation  ;  several  of  the  narratives  are  not 
to  be  found  anywhere  else,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  matter  is 
Warner's  own,  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  In  this,  as  well  as  in 
other  respects,  it  has  greatly  the  advantage  over  the  Mirror  for 
Magistrates,  as  a  rival  to  which  work  it  was  perhaps  originally  pro- 
duced, and  with  the  popvilarity  of  which  it  could  scarcely  fail  con- 
siderably to  interfere.  Though  a  long  poem  (not  much  under  10,- 
000  verses),  it  is  still  a  much  less  ponderoiis  work  than  the  Mirror, 
absolutely  as  well  as  specifically.  Its  variety,  though  not  obtained 
by  any  very  artificial  method,  is  infinite  :  not  only  are  the  stories 
it  selects,  unlike  those  in  the  Mirror,  generally  of  a  merry  cast,  and 
much  more  briefly  and  smartly  told,  but  the  reader  is  never  kept 
long  even  on  the  same  track  or  ground  :  all  subjects,  all  depart- 
ments of  human  knowledge  or  speculation,  from  theology  down  to 
common  arithmetic,  are  intermixed,  or  rather  interlaced,  with  the 
histories  and  legends  in  the  most  extraordinary  manner.  The  verse 
is  the  favorite  fourteen-syllable  line  of  that  age,  the  same  in  reality 
with  that  which  has  in  modern  times  been  commonly  divided  into 
two  lines,  the  first  of  eight,  the  second  of  six  syllables,  and  which 
in  that  form  is  still  most  generally  used  for  short  compositions  in 
verse,  more  especially  for  those  of  a  narrative  or  otherwise  popular 
character.  What  Warner  was  chiefly  admired  for  in  his  own  day 
was  his  style.  Meres  in  his  Wit's  Treasury  mentions  him  as  one 
of  those  by  whom  the  English  tongue  in  that  age  had  been  "  might- 
ily enriched,  and  gorgeously  invested  in  rare  ornaments  and  re- 
splendent habiliments."  And  for  fluency,  combined  with  precision 
and  economy  of  diction,  Warner  is  probably  unrivalled  among  the 
writers  of  English  verse.  We  do  not  know  whether  his  profes- 
sional studies  and  habits  may  have  contributed  to  give  this  charac- 
ter to  his  style  ;  but,  if  the  poetry  of  attorneys  be  apt  to  take  this 
3urt,  direct,  lucid,  and  at  the  same  time  flowing  shape,  it  is  a  pity 
that  we  had  not  a  little  more  of  it.  His  command  of  the  vulgar 
tongue,  in  particular,  is  wonderful.      This  indeed  is  perhaps  his 


550  ENGLISH  litp:rature  and  language. 

most  remarlvuble  poetical  chai'acteristic  ;  and  the  tone  which  wijg 
thus  given  to  his  poem  (being  no  doubt  that  of  his  own  mind)  may 
be  conjectured  to  have  been  in  great  part  the  source  both  of  its 
immense  popukii-ity  for  a  time,  and  of  the  neglect  and  oblivion  into 
which  it  was  afterwards  allowed  to  drop.  That  Warner's  poetry 
and  that  of  Spenser  could  have  ever  come  in  one  another's  way  is 
impossible.  Albion's  England  must  from  the  first  have  been  a 
book  rather  for  the  many  than  the  few,  —  for  the  kitchen  rather 
than  the  hall  ;  its  spirit  is  not,  what  it  has  been  sometimes  called, 
merely  naive,  but  essentially  coarse  and  vulgar.  We  do  not  allude 
so  much  to  any  particular  abundance  of  warm  description,  or  fi-ee- 
dom  of  languao-e,  as  to  the  low  note  on  which  the  o-eneral  strain  oi 
the  composition  is  pitched.  With  all  its  force  and  vivacity,  and 
even  no  want  of  fancy,  at  times,  and  graphic  descriptive  power,  it 
is  poetry  Avith  as  little  of  high  imagination  in  it  as  any  that  was 
ever  Avritten.  Warner's  is  only  at  the  most  a  capital  poetical  busi- 
ness style.  Its  positive  offences,  however,  in  the  way  of  broadness 
and  indecency  of  allusion  are  also  very  considerable  —  and  are 
more  pervading,  run  more  through  its  whole  texture,  than  the 
same  thing  will  be  found  to  do  in  the  writing  of  any  other  eminent 
poet  of  that  time.  When  the  poem  was  first  produced,  the  middle 
classes  in  general,  for  whom  Ave  must  suppose  it  to  have  been  prin- 
cipally intended,  were  still  unrefined  enough  not  to  be  scared  or 
oflfended  by  this  grossness,  but  rather  to  relish  and  enjoy  it :  this  is 
proved  by  the  eagerness  with  which  so  many  editions  were  called 
for  in  so  short  a  time.  We  do  not  believe  that,  as  has  been  said, 
"  its  publication  was  at  one  time  interdicted  by  the  Star-Chamber 
for  no  other  reason,  that  can  now  be  assigned,  but  that  it  contains 
some  love-stories  more  sim})ly  than  delicately  related."  ^  The  pro- 
hil)ition  by  the  Star-Chamber  was  of  the  fii'st  edition,  and  appar- 
L'ntly  before  it  had  been  published  ;  and  the  ground  seems  to  have 
been  merely  the  invasion  of  the  property  of  one  printer  by  another 
(in  whose  house  a  seizure  of  the  copies  he  had  thrown  ofl^  was 
made  by  the  wardens  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  he,  it  is  stated, 
having  been  forbidden  to  print  the  book  both  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  by  the  wardens,  and  his  doing  so  being  also  con- 
trary to  the  late  decrees  of  the  Honourable  Court  of  Star-Cham- 
'jer).2      If  the  book  had  been  attempted  to  be  suppressed  for  the 

^  Campbell,  Spocimens,  p.  71  (edit,  of  1844). 

2  See  Kitson's  Bibliograpliia  Poetica,  p.  385,  note. 


WARNER.  551 

nakedness  of  some  of  the  descriptions,  it  probably  would  not  have 
appeared  at  all,  —  whereas  it  was  given  to  the  world  that  same 
year  from  the  press  of  another  printer,  and  was  afterwards  freely 
multiplied,  as  we  have  seen,  in  a  rapid  succession  of  new  editions. 
But  by  the  first  years  of  the  next  century  a  new  generation  had 
grown  up,  —  and  even  among  the  most  numerous  class  of  readers 
a  change  of  manners  had  taken  place  which  made  it  impossible  that 
such  a  work  as  Albion's  England  should  retain  the  favor  it  had 
once  enjoyed.  It  was  probably  now  universally  voted  vulgar,  and 
held  to  have  been  suitable  only  for  a  more  barbarous  age.  Nevei-- 
theless,  the  poem,  as  we  have  said,  has  very  remarkable  merit  in 
some  respects,  and  many  passages,  or  rather  portions  of  passages, 
in  it  may  still  be  read  with  pleasure.  It  is  also  in  the  highest  de- 
gree curious  both  as  a  repository  of  our  old  language,  and  for  many 
notices  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  our  ancestors  which  are 
scattered  up  and  down  in  it.  All  that  is  commonly  known  of 
Warner  is  from  the  story  of  Argentile  and  Curan,  which  has  been 
reprinted  from  his  Fourth  Book  by  Mi's.  Cooper  in  The  Muses' 
Library  (1738),  and  by  Percy  in  his  Reliques,  and  that  of  The 
Patient  Countess,  which  Percy  has  also  given,  from  his  Eighth  Book. 
We  shall  endeavor  to  select  a  few  such  short  passages  as  may  con- 
vey a  fair  notion  of  what  the  work  contains  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  it  is  executed.  It  is  difficult,  for  the  reason  that  has  been 
stated  above,  to  find  many  pages,  at  least  in  the  more  interesting 
parts  of  the  poem,  that  can  be  transcribed  entire. 

The  following  passage  from  the  Third  Book,  being  the  conclusion 
of  the  17th  Chapter,  is  a  specimen  of  Warner's  very  neatest  style 
of  narration.  He  has  related  Ctesar's  victory  over  the  Briton:^, 
which  he  says  was  won  with  difficulty,  the  conquest  of  the  countrj 
having  been  only  accomplished  through  the  submission  of  that 
"  traitorous  knight,  the  Earl  of  London,"  whose  disloyal  example 
in  yielding  his  charge  and  city  to  the  foe  was  followed  by  the  other 
cities  ;  and  thcii  he  winds  up  thus  :  — 

But  he,  that  won  in  every  war,  at  Rome  in  civil  robe 
Was  stabbed  to  death :  no  certainty  is  underneath  this  globe  ; 
Tlie  good  are  envied  of  the  bad,  and  glory  finds  disdain, 
And  people  are  in  constancy  as  April  is  in  rain ; 
Whei'eof,  amidst  our  serious  pen,  this  fable  entertain  :  — 

An  Ass,  an  Old  Man,  and  a  Boy  did  through  the  city  pass  ; 


552  ENGLISPI   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

And,  whilst  the  wanton  Boy  did  ride,  the  ^  Old  Man  led  the  Ass. 

See  yonder  doting  fool,  said  folk,  that  crawleth  scarce  for  age, 

Doth  set  the  boy  upon  his  ass,  and  makes  himself  his  page. 

Anon  the  blamed  Boy  alights,  and  lets  the  Old  Man  ride, 

And,  as  the  Old  Man  did  before,  the  Boy  the  Ass  did  guide. 

But,  passing  so.  the  people  then  did  much  the  Old  Man  blame. 

And  told  him,  Churl,  thy  limbs  be  tough  ;  let  ride  the  boy,  for  shame. 

The  fault  thus  found,  both  Man  and  Boy  did  back  the  ass  and  ride ; 

Then  that  the  ass  was  over-charged  each  man  that  met  them  cried. 

Now  both  alight  and  go  on  foot,  and  lead  the  empty  beast ; 

But  then  the  people  laugh,  and  say  that  one  might  ride  at  least. 

The  Old  Man,  seeing  by  no  ways  he  could  the  people  please, 

Not  blameless  then,  did  drive  the  ass  and  drown  him  in  the  seas- 

Thus,  whilst  we  be,  it  will  not  be  that  any  pleaseth  all ; 

Else  had  been  wanting,  worthily,  the  noble  Cesar's  fall. 

The  end  of  Richard  the  Third,  in  the  Sixth  Book  (Chaptei 
26th),  is  given  with  much  spirit :  — 

Now  Richard  heard  that  Richmond  was  assisted,  and  on  shore, 
And  like  unkenneled  Cerberus  the  crooked  tyrant  swore, 
And  all  complexions  act  at  once  confusedly  in  him ; 
He  studieth,  striketh,  threats,  entreats,  and  looketh  mildly  grim  ; 
Mistrustfully  he  trusteth,  and  he  dreadingly  doth  -  dare. 
And  forty  passions  in  a  trice  in  him  consort  and  square. 
But  when,  by  his  convented  force,  his  foes  increased  more, 
He  hastened  battle,  finding  his  corrival  apt  therefore. 

When  Richmond  orderly  in  all  had  battailed  his  aid, 
Enringed  by  his  complices,  their  cheerful  leader  said  :  — 
Now  is  the  time  and  place,  sweet  friends,  and  we  tiie  pereons  be 
That  must  give  England  breath,  or  else  unbreathe  for  her  must  we. 
No  tyranny  is  fabled,  and  no  tyrant  wi\s  indeed. 
Worse  than  our  foe,  whose  works  will  act  my  words  if  well  he  speed. 
For  ills  ^  to  ills  superlative  are  easily  enticed, 
But  entertain  amendment  as  the  Gergesites  did  Christ. 
Be  valiant  then  ;  he  biddeth  so  that  would  not  be  outbid 
For  courage,  yet  shall  honour  him,  though  base,  that  better  did. 
I  am  right  heir  Lancastrian,  he  in  York's  destroyed  right 

'  In  the  printed  copy,  "  a."  The  edition  before  us,  that  of  1612,  abounds  with 
typographical  errata. 

2  There  can  be  no  question  that  this  is  tlie  true  word,  whicli  is  misprinted  "did  " 
in  tJie  edition  before  us. 

8  Misprinted  "  ill." 


WARNER  553 

Ufeui'peth  ;  but,  through  either  source,*  for  neither  claim  I  fight, 
But  for  our  country's  long-hacked  weal,  for  England's  peace,  I  war ; 
Wliereiu  He  speed  us,  unto  whom  I  all  events  refar. 

Meanwhile  had  furious  Richard  set  his  armies  in  array, 
And  then,  with  looks  even  like  himself,  this  or  the  like  did  say :  — 
Why,  lads  ?  shall  yonder  Welshman,  with  his  stragglers,  overmatch  ? 
Disdain  ye  not  such  rivals,  and  defer  ye  their  dispatch  ? 
Shall  Tudor  from  Plantagenet  the  crown  by  craking  snatch  ? 
Know  Richard's  very  thouglits  (he  touched  the  diadem  he  wore) 
Be  metal  of  this  metal :  tlien  believe  I  love  it  more 
Than  tliat  for  other  law  than  life  to  supersede  my  claim  ; 
And  lesser  must  not  be  his  plea  that  counterpleads  the  same. 

The  weapons  overtook  his  words,  and  blow^s  they  bravely  change, 
When  like  a  lion,  thirsting  blood,  did  moody  Richard  range, 
And  made  large  slaughters  where  he  went,  till  Riclimoud  he  espied, 
Whom  singling,  after  doubtful  swords,  the  valorous  tyrant  died. 

Others  of  Sliakspeare's  historical  or  legendary  subjects  are  also 
in  Albion's  England  ;  particularly  the  story  of  Lear,  and  that  of 
Macbeth.  In  the  former,  which  is  in  the  Third  Book  (Chapter 
14},  the  following  Avell-turned  lines  occur  :  — 

His  aged  eyes  pour  out  their  tears,  when,  holdmg  up  his  hands, 

He  said,  O  God !  whoso  tliou  art  that  my  good  hap  withstands, 

Prolong  not  life,  defer  not  death  ;  my  self  I  overlive 

When  those  that  owe  to  me  their  lives  to  me  my  death  would  give. 

Thou  town,  whose  walls  rose  of  my  wealth,  stand  evermore  to  tell 

Thy  founder's  fall,  and  warn  that  none  do  fall  as  Leir  fell. 

Bid  none  affy  in  friends ;  for  say.  His  children  wrought  his  wrack  ; 

Yea,  those  that  were  to  him  most  dear  did  loath  and  let  him  lack. 

Cordelia,  well  Cordelia  said,  she  loved  as  a  child  ; 

But  sweeter  words  we  seek  than  sooth,  and  so  are  men  beguiled- 

She  only  rests  untried  yet ;  but  what  may  I  expect 

From  her,  to  whom  I  nothing  gave,  when  these  do  me  reject  ? 

Then  die :  nay,  try  ;  the  rule  may  fail,  and  nature  may  ascend  ; 

Nor  are  they  ever  surest  friends  on  whom  we  most  do  spend. 

The  three  last  books,  forming  the  continuation  published  in  160tx 
are  occupied  with  the  history  of  the  Scots  and  Welsh  ;  and  the 
story  of  Macbeth  is  told  in  the  Fifteenth  Book  (Chapter  94). 
Shakspeare's  witches  (as  they  are  commonly  called)  are  here  des- 
ignated the  "  three  fairies,"  and  also  "  the  weird-elves." 

1  This  is  the  only  reading  like  sense  we  can  make  out  of  "  through  eithers  ours/ 
*liich  is  the  nonsense  of  the  edition  before  us. 
VOL-   I  70 


554  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

There  are  occasionally  touches  of  true  pathos  in  Warner ;  and 
one  great  merit  which  he  has  is,  that  his  love  of  brevity  generally 
prevents  him  from  spoiling  any  stroke  of  this  kind  by  multiplying 
words  and  images  with  the  view  of  heightening  the  eftect,  as  many 
of  his  contemporaries  are  prone  to  do.  His  picture  of  Fair  Rosa- 
mond in  the  hands  of  Queen  Eleanor  is  very  touching  :  — 

Fair  Rosamund,  surprised  thus  ere  thus  she  did  expect, 
Fell  on  her  humble  knees,  and  did  her  fearful  hands  erect  : 
She  blushed  out  beauty,  whilst  the  tears  did  wash  her  pleasing  face, 
And  begged  pardon,  meriting  no  less  of  common  grace. 
So  far,  forsooth,  as  in  me  lay,  I  did,  quoth  she,  withstand  ; 
But  what  may  not  so  great  a  king  by  means  or  force  command  ? 
And  dar'st  thou,  minion,  quoth  the  Queen,  thus  article  to  me  ? 

AVith  that  she  d;ished  her  on  the  lips,  so  dyed  double  red : 

Hard  was  the  heart  that  gave  the  blow  ;  soft  were  tho?e  lips  that  bled. 

Then  forced  she  her  to  swallow  down,  prepared  for  that  intent, 

A  poisoned  potion 

But  we  must  also  give  an  example  or  two  of  the  eloquence  of 
another  kind  with  which  the  poem  more  abounds.  Much  of  it 
is  in  the  style  of  the  following  curious  passage  (from  Book  IX. 
Chap.  47)  :  — 

The  younger  of  these  widows  (for  they  both  had  thrice  been  so) 
Trots  to  the  elder's  cottage,  hers  but  little  distance  fro : 
There,  cowering  o'er  two  sticks  across,  burnt  at  a  smokey  stock. 
They  chat  how  young  men  them  in  youth,  and  tlicy  did  young  men  mock ; 
And  how  since  threescore  years  ago  (they  aged  fourscore  now) 
Men,  women,  and  the  world  were  changed  in  all,  they  knew  not  how. 
"When  we  were  maids,  quoth  the  one  of  them,  was  no  such  new-found 

pride  ; 
Yet  served  I  genlles,  seeing  store  of  dainty  girls  beside. 
Then  wore  they  shoes  of  ease  ;  now  of  an  inch  bioad,  corked  high  : 
Black  karsey  stockings  ;  worsted  now,  yea  silk  of  youtliful'st  dye : 
Garters  of  lists  ;  but  now  of  silk,  some  edged  deep  with  gold  : 
With  costlier  toys  —  for  coarser  turns  than  used,  pcihaps,  of  old. 
Fringed  and  embroidered  petticoats  now  beg :  but  heard  you  named, 
rill  now  of  late,  busks,  periwigs,  masks,  plumes  of  feathers  framed, 
Suppoitei'S,  pooters,^  fardingales  above  the  loins  to  weai"  ? 

Some  wives,  grey  headed,  shame  not  locks  of  youthful  borrowed  hair ; 
1  Clialmers  bus  "posters." 


WARNER.  000 

Some,  tiring  art,  attire  their  heads  \vith  only  tresses  bare. 

Some  (grosser  pride  than  which,  think  I,  no  passed  age  might  shame) 

By  art  abusing  nature,  heads  of  antick't  hair  do  frame. 

Once  Lacked  each  foresaid  term,^  because  was  lacking  once  the  toy  ; 

And,  lacked  we  all  those  toys  and  terms,  it  were  no  grief  but  joy : 

But,  lawful  were  it  some  be  such,  should  all  alike  be  coy  ? 

Now  dwells  each  drossel  in  her  glass :  when  I  was  young,  I  wot, 

On  holydaj's  (for  sildom  else  such  idle  times  we  got) 

A  tub  or  pail  of  water  clear  stood  us  instead  of  glass. 

]My  parents  they  were  wealthy,  and  myself  in  wanton  youth 
Was  fair  enough,  but  proud  enough,  so  fool  enough  in  truth. 
I  might  have  had  good  husbands,  which  my  destiny  withstood : 
Of  three  now  dead  (all  grief  is  di-y,  gossip,  this  ale  is  good) 
In  faith  not  one  of  them  wiis  so ;  for  by  this  drink  I  swear 
(Requarrelling  the  cup)  we  —  and  her  lips  imparted  were 
When  the  other  beldam,  great  with  chat  (for  talkative  be  cups) 
The  former's  prate,  not  worth  the  while,  thus  fondly  interrupts  :  — 
When  I,  quoth  she,  the  country  left  to  be  a  London  lass, 
I  was  not  fairer  than  myself  believed  fair  I  was. 
Good  God  !  how  formal,  prankt,  and  pert  became  I  in  a  trice. 
As  if  unto  the  place  it  were  a  nature  to  be  nice. 

And  so  the  dialogue  proceeds,  though  with  more  spirit  than  refine, 
ment,  for  a  couple  of  pages  farther.  In  another  place  (Book  XIV. 
Chap.  91)  a  Lar,  or  Elf,  is  introduced  inveighing  against  the  decaj 
of  ancient  manners,  in  the  following  strain  :  — 

To  farmers  came  I,  that  at  least  their  loaf  and  cheese  once  freed 
For  all  would  eat,  but  found  themselves  the  parings  now  to  need ; 
So  do  their  landlords  rack  their  rents  :  though  in  the  manor  place 
Scarce  smoked  a  chimney,  yet  did  smoke  perplex  me  in  strange  case. 
I  saw  the  chimneys  cleared  of  fire,  where  ne'ertheless  it  smoked 
So  bitterly  as  one  not  used  to  like  it  might  have  choked. 
But,  when  I  saw  it  did  proceed  from  nostrils  and  from  throats 
Of  ladies,  lords,  and  silly  grooms,  not  burning  skins  nor  coats, 
Great  Belsabub  !  thought  I,  can  all  spit  fire  as  well  as  thine? 
Or  where  am  I  ?     It  cannot  be  under  the  torrid  line. 
My  fellow  Incubus 

Did  put  me  by  that  fear,  and  said  it  was  an  Indian  weed. 

That  fumed  away  more  wealth  than  would  a  many  thousands  feed. 

Freed  of  that  fear,  the  novelty  of  coaches  scathed  me  so, 

1  Chalmers  has  "  Once  starching  lacked  the  term." 


556  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

As  from  tlieir  drifts  and  cluttering  I  knew  not  where  to  go. 

Those  also  work,  quoth  Incubus,  to  our  avail,  for  why  ? 

They  tend  to  idle  pride,  and  to  inhospitality. 

With  that  I,  comforted,  did  then  peep  into  every  one. 

And  of  my  old  acquaintances  spied  many  a  country  Joan, 

Whose  fathers  drove  the  dung-cart,  though  the  daughters. now  will  none. 

I  knew  when  prelates  and  the  peers  had  fair  attendance  on 

By  gentlemen  and  yeomanry ;  but  that  fair  world  is  gone : 

For  most,  like  Jehu,  hurry  with  pedanties  two  or  three, 

Yet  all  go  down  the  wind,  save  those  that  hospitalious  be. 

Greatest  ladies,  with  their  women,  on  their  palfreys  mounted  fiiii", 

Went  through  the  streets,  well  waited  on,  their  artless  faces  bare, 

Which  now  in  coaches  scorn  to  be  saluted  of  the  air. 

I  knew  when  men  judicial  rode  on  sober  mules,  whereby 

They  might  of  suitors,  these  and  they,  ask,  answer,  and  reply. 

I  knew  when  more  was  thrived  abroad  by  war  than  nov?'  by  peace, 

And  English  feared  where  they  be  frumpt  since  hostile  terms  did  cease : 

But  by  occasion  all  things  are  produced,  be,  decrease. 

Times  were  when  practice  also  preached,  and  well  said  was  well  done  ; 

Wlien  courtiers  cleared  the  old  before  they  on  the  new  world  run ; 

When  no  judicial  place  was  bought,  lest  justice  might  be  sold  ; 

When  quirts  nor  quillets  overthrew  or  long  did  causes  hold ; 

When  lawyers  more  deserved  their  fees,  and  fatted  less  with  gold  ; 

When  to  the  fifteenth  Psalm  sometimes  had  citizens  recourse ; 

When  Lords  of  farmers,  farmers  of  the  poor,  had  more  remorse ; 

When  poverty  had  patience  more ;  when  none,  as  some  of  late, 

Illiterate,  ridiculous,  might  on  the  altar  wait ;  &c. 

Warner's  most  abusive  invectives,  however,  in  which  he  exhausts 
the  vocabulary  of  the  kitchen  and  the  streets,  are  directed  against 
the  old  rehgion.  But  we  cannot  afford  room  for  any  further  speci- 
mens. 


DANIEL. 


The  great  work  of  Samuel  Daniel,  who  was  bom  at  Taunton, 
m  Somersetshire,  in  1562,  and  died  in  1619,  is  his  Civil  Wars 
between  the  Two  Houses  of  Lancaster  and  York,  in  eioht  Books, 
tlie  first  four  published  in  1595,  the  fifth  in  1599,  the  sixth  in 
1602,  the  two  last  in  1609  ;  the  preceding  Books  being  always, 
we  believe,  republislicMl  along  with   the  new  edition.     He   is  also 


DANJhL.  557 

the  author  of  various  minor  poetical  productions,  of  which  the 
principal  are  a  collection  of  fifty-seven  Sonnets  entitled  Delia  his 
Musophilus,  containing  a  General  Defence  of  Learning,  some  short 
epistles,  and  several  tragedies  and  court  masques.  And  he  wrote, 
besides,  in  prose,  a  History  of  England,  from  the  Conquest  to  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  as  well  as  the  Defence  of  Rhyme 
(in  answer  to  Campion)  which  has  been  ah-eady  mentioned.  Very 
ojiposite  judgments  have  been  passed  upon  Daniel.  Ben  Jonson, 
in  his  conversations  with  Drummond,  declared  him  to  be  no  poet: 
Drummond,  on  the  contrary,  pronounces  him  "  for  sweetness  of 
rhyming  second  to  none."  His  style,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  has 
a  remarkably  modern  air:  if  it  were  weeded  of  a  few  obsolete 
expressions,  it  would  scarcely  seem  more  antique  than  that  of 
Waller,  which  is  the  most  modern  of  the .  seventeenth  century. 
Bishop  Kennet,  who  has  republished  Daniel's  History,  after  telling 
us  that  the  author  had  a  place  at  Court  in  the  reiixn  of  Kino-  James 
I.,  being  groom  of  the  privy  chambers  to  the  Queen,  observes, 
that  he  "seems  to  have  taken  all  the  refinement  a  court  could  ptvq 
him  ;  "  and  probably  the  absence  of  pedantry  in  his  style,  and  its 
easy  and  natural  flow,  are  to  be  traced  in  great  part  to  the  circum- 
stance of  his  having  been  a  man  of  the  world.  His  verse,  too, 
always  careful  and  exact,  is  in  many  passages  more  than  smooth  ; 
even  in  his  dramatic  writings  (which,  having  nothing  dramatic 
about  them  except  the  form,  have  been  held  in  very  small  estima- 
tion) it  is  frequently  musical  and  sweet,  though  always  artificial. 
The  highest  quality  of  his  poetry  is  a  tone  of  quiet,  pensive  reflec- 
tion in  which  he  is  fond  of  indulging,  and  which  often  rises  to  dig- 
nity and  eloquence,  and  has  at  times  even  something  of  depth  and 
originality.  Daniel's  was  the  not  uncommon  fate  of  an  attendant 
upon  courts  and  the  great :  he  is  believed  to  have  experienced 
some  neglect  from  his  royal  patrons  in  his  latter  days,  or  at  least 
to  have  been  made  jealous  by  Ben  Jonson  being  employed  to  fur- 
nish part  of  the  poetry  for  the  court  entertainments,  the  supply  of 
which  he  used  to  have  all  to  himself;  upon  which  he  retired  to  a 
life  of  quiet  and  contemplation  in  the  country.  It  sounds  strange 
in  the  present  day  to  be  told  that  his  favorite  retreat  from  the 
gayety  and  bustle  of  London  was  a  house  which  he  rented  in  Old 
Street,  St.  Luke's.  In  his  gardens  here,  we  are  informed  by  the 
writer  of  the  Life  prefixed  to  his  collected  poems,  he  Avould  often 
intlulge  in  entire  solitude  for  many  months,  or  at  most  receive  ih^ 


558  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

visits  of  only  a  few  select  friends.  It  is  said  to  have  been  here 
that  he  (.'omposed  most  of  his  dramatic  pieces.  Towards  the  end 
of  his  life  he  retired  to  a  farm  which  he  had  at  Becjvington,  neai 
Phili])'s  Norton,  in  Somersetshire,  and  his  death  took  place  tliere. 
"  He  was  married,"  says  the  editor  of  his  works,  "  but  whether  to 
the  person  he  so  often  celebrates  under  the  name  of  Delia,  is  un- 
certain." Fuller,  in  his  Worthies,  tells  us  that  his  Avife's  name 
Avas  Justina.  They  had  no  children.  Daniel  is  said  to  have  been 
appointed  to  the  honorary  post  of  Poet-Laureate  after  the  death 
of  Spenser. 

In  his  narrative  poetry,  Daniel  is  in  general  wire-drawn,  flat, 
and  feeble.  He  has  no  passion,  and  very  little  descriptive  poAver. 
His  Civil  Wars  has  certainly  as  little  of  martial  animation  in  it  as 
any  poem  in  the  language.  There  is  abundance,  indeed,  of  "  the 
tranquil  mind "  ;  but  of  "  the  plumed  troops,"  and  the  rest  of 
"  the  pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious  Avar,"  Daniel 
seems,  in  composing  this  Avork  (avc  had  nearly  written  in  this 
composing  Avork),  to  have  taken  as  complete  a  farcAvell  as  Othello 
himself.  It  is  mostly  a  tissue  of  long-Avinded  disquisition  and  cold 
and  languid  declamation,  and  has  altogether  more  of  the  quahties 
of  a  good  opiate  than  of  a  good  poem.  We  Avill  therefore  take 
the  few  extracts  for  Avhich  Ave  can  make  room  from  some  of  his 
other  productions,  Avhere  his  vein  of  reflection  is  more  in  place, 
and  also  better  in  itself.  His  Musophilus  is  perhaps  upon  the 
whole  his  finest  piece.  The  poem,  which  is  in  the  form  of  a  dia- 
logue between  Pb.ilocosmus  (a  lover  of  the  world)  and  Musophilus 
(a  lover  of  the  Muse),  commences  thus  :  — 

Pltilocosmus. 

Fond  man,  Musophilus,  that  thus  dost  spend 
In  an  ungainful  art  thy  dearest  days, 
Tiring  thy  wits,  and  toiling  to  no  end 
But  to  attain  that  idle  smoke  of  praise  ! 
Kow,  wlien  this  busy  Avorld  cannot  attend 
The  untimely  music  of  neglected  lays, 
Other  delights  than  these,  other  desires, 
This  wiser  proiit-sceking  age  requires. 

Miisopliihis. 

Friend  Piiilocosmus,  I  confess  indeed 
I  love  tliis  sacred  ai't  thou  set'st  so  lijjht : 


DANIEL.  oo! 

And,  though  it  never  stand  my  life  in  stead, 
It  is  enougli  it  gives  myself  delight, 
The  whilst  my  unafflicted  mind  doth  feed 
On  no  unholy  thoughts  for  benetit. 

Be  it  that  my  unseasonable  song 

Come  out  of  time,  that  fault  is  in  the  time  ; 

And  I  must  not  do  virtue  so  much  wrong 

As  love  her  aught  the  worse  for  others'  crime ; 

And  yet  I  find  some  blessed  spirits  among 

That  cherish  me,  and  like  and  grace  my  rhyme, 

A  gain  that  ^  I  do  more  in  soul  esteem 

Than  all  the  gain  of  dust  the  world  doth  crave 

And,  if  I  may  attain  but  to  redeem 

My  name  from  dissolution  and  the  grave, 

I  shall  have  done  enough  ;  and  better  deem 

To  have  lived  to  he  than  to  have  died  to  have. 

Short-breathed  mortality  would  yet  extend 
That  span  of  life  so  far  forth  as  it  may. 
And  rob  her  fate ;  seek  to  beguile  her  end 
Of  some  few  lingering  days  of  after-stay  ; 
That  all  this  Little  All  might  not  descend 
Into  the  dark  an  universal  prey ; 
And  give  our  labours  yet  this  poor  delight 
That,  when  our  days  do  end,  they  are  not  done, 
And,  though  we  die,  we  shall  not  perish  quite, 
But  live  two  lives  where  others  have  but  one. 

Further  on  in  the  dialogue,  Miisophilus  exclaims  :  — 

So  fares  this  humorous  world,  that  ever-more, 

Rapt  with  the  current  of  a  present  course, 

Runs  into  that  which  lay  contemned  before ; 

Then,  glutted,  leaves  the  same,  and  falls  to  a  worse  : 

Now  zeal  holds  all,  no  life  but  to  adore  ; 

Then  cold  in  spirit,  and  life  is  of  no  force. 

Strait  all  that  holy  was  mihallowed  lies, 

The  scattered  carcases  of  ruined  vows  ; 

Then  truth  is  false,  and  now  hath  blindness  eyes ; 

Then  zeal  trusts  all,  now  scarcely  what  it  knows ; 

'  Erroneously  printed  in  tlie  edition  before  us  (2  vols.  I'Jino.  1718)  "Again  that.' 


660  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

That  evermore,  to  foolish  or  to  wise, 

It  fatal  is  to  be  seduced  with  shows.  , 

Sacred  Religion  !  Mother  of  Form  and  Fear  !  * 
How  gorgeously  sometimes  dost  thou  sit  decked  I 
What  pompous  vestures  do  we  make  thee  wear ! 
What  stately  piles  we  prodigal  erect ! 
How  sweet  perfumed  thou  art !  how  shining  clear  I 
How  solemnly  observed  !  with  what  respect ! 

Another  time,  all  plain,  all  quite  thread-bare, 
Thou  must  have  all  within,  and  nought  without ; 
Sit  poorly,  without  light,  disrobed  ;  no  care 
Of  outward  grace,  to  amuse  the  poor  devout ; 
Powerless,  unfoUowed ;  scarcely  men  can  spare 
The  necessary  rites  to  set  thee  out. 

Either  Truth,  Goodness,  Virtue  are  not  still 
The  selfsame  which  they  are,  and  always  one, 
But  alter  to  the  project  of  our  will ; 
Or  we  our  actions  make  them  wait  upon. 
Putting  them  in  the  livery  of  our  skill. 
And  cast  them  off  again  when  we  have  done. 

Afterwards  he  replies  very  finely  to  an  objection  jf  Philocosmiis 
to  the  cultivation  of  poetry,  from  the  small  number  of  those  who 
really  cared  ihr  it :  — 

And  for  the  few  that  only  lend  their  ear, 
That  few  is  all  the  world  ;  which  with  a  few 
Do  ever  live,  and  move,  and  work,  and  stir. 
This  is  the  heart  doth  feel,  and  only  know ; 
The  rest,  of  all  that  only  bodies  bear, 
Roll  up  and  down,  and  fill  up  but  the  row  ; 

And  serve  as  others'  members,  not  their  own, 
The  instruments  of  those  that  do  direct. 
Then,  what  disgrace  is  this,  not  to  be  known 
To  those  know  not  to  give  tliemselves  respect  ? 
And,  though  they  swell,  with  pomp  of  folly  blown, 
They  live  ungraced,  and  die  but  in  neglect. 

And,  for  my  part,  if  only  one  allow 

The  care  my  labouring  spirits  take  in  this, 

^  This  fine  line  has  been  adopted  by  Wordsworth,  a  reader  and  admirer  of  Dan* 
iel,  in  one  of  his  sonnets  on  the  Duddon. 


DANIEL.  501 

He  is  to  me  a  theatre  large  enow, 
And  his  applause  only  sufficient  is ; 
All  my  respect  is  bent  but  to  his  brow ; 
That  is  my  all,  and  all  I  am  is  his. 

And,  if  some  worthy  spirits  be  pleased  too, 
It  shall  more  comfort  breed,  but  not  more  will. 
But  what  if  none  ?     It  cannot  yet  undo 
The  love  I  bear  unto  this  holy  skill : 
This  is  the  thing  that  I  was  born  to  do ; 
This  is  my  scene  ;  this  part  must  I  fulfil. 

Our  last  extract  shall  be  from  his  epistle  to  the  Lady  Margaret, 
Countess  of  Cumberland  (the  mother  of  Lady  Anne  Clifford, 
afterwards  Countess  of  Pembroke,  Dorset,  and  Montgomery,  to 
whom  Daniel  had  been  tutor)  :  — 

He  that  of  such  a  height  hath  set  his  mind, 
And  reared  the  dwelling  of  the  thoughts  so  strong. 
As  neither  fear  nor  hope  can  shake  the  frame 
Of  his  resolved  powers  ;  nor  all  the  wind 
Of  vanity  or  malice  pierce  to  wrong 
His  settled  peace,  or  to  disturb  the  same  ; 
What  a  fair  seat  hath  he  from  whence  he  may 
The  boundless  wastes  and  weals  of  man  survey  ! 

And  with  how  free  an  eye  doth  he  look  down 
Upon  these  lower  regions  of  turmoil ! 
Where  all  the  storms  of  passions  mainly  beat 
On  flesh  and  blood ;  where  honour,  power,  renown 
Are  only  gay  affections,  golden  toil ; 
Where  greatness  stands  upon  as  feeble  feet 
As  frailty  doth,  and  only  great  doth  seem 
To  little  minds  who  do  it  so  esteem. 

Thus,  Madam,  fares  that  man  that  hath  prepared 
A  rest  for  his  desires  ;  and  sees  all  things 
Beneath  him ;  and  hath  learned  this  Book  of  Man, 
Full  of  the  notes  of  frailty ;  and  compared 
The  best  of  glory  with  her  sufferings  : 
By  whom,  I  see,  you  labour  all  you  can 
To  plant  your  heart,  and  set  your  thoughts  as  near 
His  glorious  mansion  as  your  powers  can  bear. 

Which,  Madam,  are  so  soundly  fashioned 

By  that  clear  judgment,  that  hath  carried  you 

VOL.    I.  71 


b&2  EXCLTSII    LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

Beyond  the  feeble  limits  of  your  kind, 

As  they  can  stand  against  the  strongest  head 

Passion  can  make  ;  inured  to  any  hue 

The  world  can  cast ;  that  cannot  cast  that  mind 

Out  of  the  form  of  goodness  ;  that  doth  see 

Both  what  the  best  and  worst  of  earth  can  be. 

Which  makes  that,  whatsoever  here  befals, 
You  in  the  region  of  your  self  remain. 
Where  no  vain  breath  of  the  impudent  molests  ; 
That  lieth  ^  secured  within  the  brazen  walls 
Of  a  clear  conscience  ;  that,  without  all  stain, 
Rises  in  peace,  in  innocency  rests. 
Whilst  all  what  malice  from  without  procures 
Shows  her  own  ugly  heart,  but  hurts  not  yours. 

And,  whereas  none  rejoice  more  in  revenge 
Than  Avomen  use  to  do,  yet  you  well  know 
That  wrong  is  better  checked  by  being  contemned 
Than  being  pursued ;  leaving  to  Him  to  avenge 
To  whom  it  appertains.     Wherein  you  show 
How  worthily  your  clearness  hath  condemned 
Base  malediction,  living  in  the  dark, 
That  at  the  rays  of  goodness  still  doth  bark. 

Knowing  the  heart  of  man  is  set  to  be 
Tlie  centre  of  this  world,  about  the  which 
These  revolutions  of  disturbances 
Still  roll ;  where  all  the  aspects  of  misery 
Predouiinate  ;  whose  strong  eff(!cts  are  such 
As  he  must  bear,  being  powerless  to  redress ; 
And  that,  unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man ! 

And  this  note,  INIadam,  of  your  worthiness 
Kemains  recorded  in  so  many  hearts. 
As  time  nor  malice  cannot  wrong  your  right 
In  the  inheritance  of  fame  you  must  possess : 
You  that  have  built  you  by  your  great  deserts, 
Out  of  small  means,  a  far  more  exquisite 
Anil  glorious  dwelling  for  your  honoured  name 
Than  all  tlie  gold  of-  leaden  minds  can  frame. 

1  This  apparently  mast  be  the  true  word.     The  edition  before  us  has  "hath. 
•  The  text  before  us  lias  "  that,"  which  is  nonsense. 


DRAYTON. 

Michael  Drayton,  who  is  computed  to  have  been  born  in  1563, 
and  who  died  in  1631,  is  one  of  the  most  voknninous  of  our  old 
poets ;  being  the  author,  besides  many  minor  compositions,  of  three 
works  of  great  length  :  —  his  Barons'  Wars  (on  the  subject  of  the 
civil  wars  of  the  reign  of  Edward  II.),  originally  entitled  Morti- 
meriados,  under  which  name  it  was  published  in  1596 ;  his  Eng- 
land's Heroical  Epistles,  1598  ;  and  his  Polyolbion,  the  first  eigh- 
teen Books  of  which  appeared  in  1612,  and  the  whole,  consisting 
of  thirty  Books,  and  extending  to  as  many  thousand  lines,  in  1622. 
This  last  is  the  work  on  which  his  fame  principally  rests.  It  is  a 
most  elaborate  and  minute  topographical  description  of  England, 
written  in  Alexandrine  rhymes  ;  and  is  a  very  remai'kable  work 
for  the  varied  learning  it  displays,  as  well  as  for  its  poetic  merits. 
The  genius  of  Drayton  is  neither  very  imaginative  nor  very  pa- 
thetic ;  but  he  is  an  agreeable  and  weighty  Avriter,  with  an  ardent, 
if  not  a  highly  creative,  fancy.  From  the  height  to  which  he  occa- 
sionally ascends,  as  well  as  from  his  power  of  keeping  longer  on 
the  wing,  he  must  be  ranked,  as  he  always  has  been,  much  before 
both  Warner  and  Daniel.  He  has  greatly  more  elevation  than  the 
former,  and  more  true  poetic  life  than  the  latter.  His  most  grace- 
ful poetry,  however,  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  some  of  his  shorter 
pieces,  —  in  his  Pastorals,  his  very  elegant  and  lively  little  poem 
entitled,  Nymphidia ;  or,  the  Court  of  Fairy,  and  his  verses  on 
Poets  and  Poesy,  in  which  occur  the  lines  on  Marlow  that  have 
been  quoted  in  a  preceding  page.  From  a  mass  of  verse  extend- 
ing in  all  to  not  far  from  100,000  lines,  the  few  extracts  that  we 
can  give  must  be  far  from  affording  a  complete  illustration  of  the 
author's  genius.  The  following  is  from  the  commencement  of  the 
Thirteenth  Book,  or  Song,  of  the  Polyolbion,  the  subject  of  which 
is  the  County  of  Warwick,  of  which  Drayton,  as  he  here  tells  us, 
\\  as  a  native  :  — 

Upon  the  mid-lands  now  the  industrious  muse  doth  fall ; 
That  shire  which  we  the  heart  of  England  well  may  call, 
As  she  herself  extends  (the  midst  which  is  decreed) 
Betwixt  St.  Michael's  Mount  and  Berwick  bordering  Tweed, 
Brave  Warwick,  that  abroad  so  long  advanced  her  Bear, 


664  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND    LANGUAGE. 

By  her  illustrious  Earls  renowned  every  where  ; 
Above  her  neighbouring  shires  which  always  bore  her  head. 
My  native  country  then,  which  so  brave  spirits  hast  bred, 
If  there  be  virtues  yet  remaining  in  thy  earth, 
Or  any  good  of  thine  thou  bred'st  into  my  birth, 
Accept  it  as  thine  own,  whilst  now  I  sing  of  thee, 
Of  all  thy  later  brood  the  unwcrthiest  though  I  be. 

When  Phoebus  lifts  his  head  out  of  the  water's  ^  wave, 
No  sooner  doth  the  earth  her  flowery  bosom  brave, 
At  such  time  as  the  year  brings  on  the  pleasant  spring 
But  Hunt's  up  to  the  morn  the  feathered  sylvans  sing ; 
And,  in  the  lov%'er  grove  as  on  the  rising  knowl, 
Upon  the  highest  spray  of  every  mounting  pole 
These  quiristers  ai'e  perched,  with  many  a  speckled  breast : 
Then  from  her  burnished  gate  the  goodly  glittering  East 
Gilds  every  mountain-top,  which  late  the  humorous  night 
Bespangled  had  with  pearl,  to  please  the  mornmg's  sight ; 
On  which  the  mirthful  quires,  with  their  clear  open  throats, 
Unto  the  joyful  morn  so  strain  their  warbling  notes 
That  hills  and  valleys  ring,  and  even  the  echoing  air 
Seems  all  composed  of  sounds  about  them  every  where. 
The  throstle  with  shrill  sharps,  as  purposely  he  song 
To  awake  the  lustless  sun,  or  chiding  that  so  long 
He  was  in  coming  forth  that  should  the  thickets  thrill ; 
The  woosel  near  at  hand ;  that  hath  a  golden  bill, 
As  nature  him  had  marked  of  purpose  t'  let  us  see 
That  from  all  other  birds  his  tunes  should  different  be  . 
For  with  their  vocal  sounds  they  sing  to  pleasant  May  ; 
Upon  his  dulcet  pipe  the  merle  doth  only  play. 
When  in  the  lower  brake  the  nightingale  bard  by 
In  such  lamenting  strains  the  joyful  hours  doth  ply 
As  though  the  other  birds  she  to  her  tunes  would  draw 
And,  but  that  Nature,  by  her  all-constraining  law, 
Each  bird  to  her  own  kind  this  season  doth  invite, 
They  else,  alone  to  hear  that  charmer  of  the  night 
(The  more  to  use  their  ears)  their  voices  sure  would  spare, 
That  modulcth  her  notes  so  admirably  rare 
As  man  to  set  in  parts  at  first  had  learned  of  her. 
To  Philomel  the  next  the  linnet  we  prefer  ; 
And  by  that  warbling  bird  the  woodlark  place  we  then, 
The  red-sparrow,  the  nope,  the  redbreast,  and  the  wren  ; 
1  Or,  perhaps,  "  watery."     The  common  text  gives  "  winter's." 


DRAYTON  565 

The  yellow-pate,  whicli,  though  she  hurt  the  blooming  tree, 

Yet  scarce  hath  any  bird  a  finer  pipe  than  she. 

And,  of  these  chanting  fowls,  the  goldfinch  not  behind. 

That  hath  so  many  sorts  descending  from  her  kind. 

The  tydy,  for  her  notes  as  delicate  as  they  ; 

The  laughing  hecco  ;  then,  the  counterfeiting  jay. 

The  softer  with  the  shrill,  some  hid  among  tiie  leaves, 

Some  in  the  taller  trees,  some  in  the  lower  greaves, 

Thus  sing  away  the  morn,  until  the  mounting  sun 

Through  thick  exhaled  fogs  his  golden  head  hath  run, 

And  through  the  twisted  tops  of  our  close  covert  creeps 

To  kiss  the  gentle  shade,  this  while  that  sweetly  sleeps. 

And,  near  to  these  our  thicks,  the  wild  and  frightful  herds, 
Not  hearing  other  noise  but  this  of  chattering  birds, 
Feed  fairly  on  the  lawns ;  both  sorts  of  seasoned  deer  : 
Here  walk  the  stately  red,  the  freckled  fallow  thoj-e ; 
The  bucks  mid  lusty  stags  amongst  the  rascals  strewed. 
As  sometime  gallant  spirits  amongst  the  multitude. 
Of  all  the  beasts  which  we  for  our  venerial  name 
The  hart  among  tlie  rest,  the  hunter's  noblest  game. 
Of  which  most  princely  chace  sith  none  did  e'er  report, 
Or  by  description  touch  to  express  that  wondrous  sport 
(Yet  might  have  well  beseemed  the  ancients'  noble  songs) 
To  our  old  Arden  here  most  fitly  it  belongs. 
Yet  shall  slie  not  invoke  the  Muses  to  her  aid. 
But  thee,  Diana  bright,  a  goddess  and  a  maid  ; 
In  many  a  huge-grown  wood,  and  many  a  shady  grove 
Which  oft  hast  borne  thy  bow.  Great  Huntress,  used  to  rove, 
At  many  a  cruel  beast,  and  with  thy  darts  to  pierce 
The  lion,  panther,  ounce,  the  bear,  and  tiger  fierce  ; 
And,  following  thy  fieet  game,  chaste  miglity  forest's  queen, 
With  thy  dishevelled  nymphs  attired  in  youthful  green, 
About  the  lawns  hast  scoured,  and  wastes  both  far  and  near. 
Brave  huntress  !     But  no  beasts  shall  prove  thy  quarries  here 
Save  those  the  best  of  chase,  the  tall  and  lusty  red. 
The  stag,  for  goodly  shape  and  stateliness  of  head. 
Is  fittest  to  hunt  at  force.     For  whom  when,  with  his  hounds, 
The  labouring  hunter  tufts  the  thick  unbarbed  grounds. 
Where  harboured  is  the  hart,  there  often  from  his  feed 
The  dogs  of  him  do  find  ;  or,  thorough  skilful  heed. 
The  huntsman  by  his  shot,  or  breaking  earth,  perceives. 
Or  entering  of  the  thick  .by  pressing  of  the  greaves, 
Where  he  had  gone  to  lodge.     Now,  when  the  hart  doth  hear 


566  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

The  often  bellowing  hounds  to  vent  his  secret  leir,^ 

He  rousing  rusheth  out,  and  through  tlie  brakes  doth  drive, 

As  though  up  by  the  iT)ots  the  buslies  he  would  rive  ; 

And,  through  the  cumbrous  thicks  as  fearfully  he  makes, 

He  with  his  branched  head  the  tender  saplings  shakes. 

That,  sprinkling  their  moist  pearls,  do  seem  for  him  to  weep, 

When  after  goes  the  cry,  with  yellings  loud  and  deep, 

That  all  the  forest  rings,  and  every  neighbouring  place. 

And  there  is  not  a  hound  but  falleth  to  the  chace ; 

Rechating  with  his  horn,  which  then  the  hunter  cheers, 

Wliilst  still  tlie  lusty  stag  his  liigh-palmed  head  uprears. 

His  body  sliovving  state,  with  unbent  knees  upright, 

Expressing,  from  all  beasts,  his  corn-age  in  his  flight. 

But  when,  the  approaching  foes  still  following,  he  perceives  • 

That  he  his  speed  must  trust,  his  usual  walk  he  leaves. 

And  o'er  the  champain  flies ;  wliich  when  the  assembly  find. 

Each  follows  as  his  horse  were  footed  with  the  wind. 

But,  being  then  embost,  the  noble  stately  deer 

Wlien  he  hath  gotten  ground  (the  kennel  cast  arear) 

Doth  beat  the  brooks  and  ponds  for  sweet  refreshing  soil ; 

That  serving  not,  tlien  proves  if  he  his  scent  can  foil, 

And  makes  amongst  the  herds,  and  flocks  of  shag-woolled  sheep, 

Tiiem  frighting  from  the  guard  of  those  who  had  their  keep ; 

But,  whenas  all  his  shifts  his  safety  still  denies. 

Put  quite  out  of  his  walk,  the  ways  and  fallows  tries. 

Whom  when  the  ploughman  meets,  his  team  he  letteth  stand. 

To  assail  him  with  his  goad  ;  so,  with  his  hook  in  hand. 

The  shepherd  liira  pursues,  and  to  his  dog  doth  hollo. 

When,  with  tempestuous  speed,  the  hounds  and  liuntsmen  follow  ; 

Until  the  noble  deer,  through  toil  bereaved  of  strength, 

His  long  and  sinewy  legs  then  failing  him  at  length, 

The  villages  attempts,  enraged,  not  giving  way 

To  any  thing  he  meets  now  at  his  sad  decay. 

The  cruel  ravenous  hounds  and  bloody  hunters  near, 

This  noblest  beast  of  chace,  that  vainly  doth  not*^  fear, 

Some  bank  or  quick-set  finds;  to  which  liis  haunch  opposed, 

He  turns  u[)on  his  foes,  that  soon  have  him  inclosed. 

The  churlish-throated  iiounds  then  holding  him  at  bay ; 

And,  as  their  cruel  fangs  on  his  harsh  skin  they  lay. 

With  his  sharp-pointed  head  he  dealeth  deadly  wounds. 

The  luniter,  coming  in  to  help  his  weaned  hounds. 

He  desperately  assails  ;  until,  oppressed  by  force, 

^  Lair.  ^  "But"  is  tlie  common  reading. 


DRAYTON.  .    567 

He,  who  the  mourner  is  to  his  own  dying  corse, 
Upon  the  rutliless  earth  his  pi-ecious  tears  lets  fall. 

This  passage,  though  long,  will  scarcely  be  felt  to  be  tedious 
It  is  one  of  the  most  animated  descriptions  in  poetry.  We  add  a 
short  specimen  of  Drayton's  lighter  style  from  his  Nymphidia  — 
the  account  of  the  equipage  of  the  Queen  of  the  Fairies,  when 
she  set  out  to  visit  her  lover  Pigwiggen.  The  reader  may  com- 
})are  it  with  Mercutio's  description  in  llomeo  and  Juliet :  — 

Her  chariot  ready  straight  is  made  ; 
Each  thing  therein  is  fitting  laid, 
That  she  by  nothing  might  be  stayed, 

For  nought  must  be  her  letting ; 
Four  nimble  guests  the  horses  were, 
Their  harnesses  of  gossamer, 
Fly  Cranion,  her  charioteer, 

Upon  the  coach-box  getting. 

Her  chariot  of  a  snail's  fine  shell, 
Which  for  the  colours  did  excel, 
The  fair  Queen  Mab  becoming  well. 

So  lively  was  the  limning ; 
The  seat  the  soft  wool  of  the  bee. 
The  cover  (gallantly  to  see) 
The  wing  of  a  pied  butterllee  ; 

I  trow  'twas  simple  trimming. 

The  wheels  composed  of  cricket's  bones, 
And  daintily  made  for  the  nonce  ; 
For  fear  of  rattling  on  the  stones 

"With  tliistle  down  they  shod  it ; 
For  all  her  maidens  much  did  fear 
If  Oberon  had  chanced  to  hear 
That  Mab  his  queen  should  have  been  there, 

He  would  not  have  abode  it. 

She  mounts  her  chariot  with  a  trice, 
Nor  would  she  stay  for  no  advice 
Until  her  maids,  that  wei-e  so  nice, 

To  wait  on  her  were  fitted  ; 
But  ran  hei'self  away  alone  ; 
Which  when  they  heard,  tliere  was  not  one 


568    .  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

But  hasted  after  to  be  gone, 
As  she  had  been  disw^tted. 

Hop,  and  Mop,  and  Drab  so  clear, 
Pip  and  Trip,  and  Skip,  that  were 
To  Mab  their  sovereign  so  dear. 

Her  special  maids  of  honour  ; 
Fib,  and  Tib,  and  Pink,  and  Pin, 
Tick,  and  Quick,  and  Jill,  and  Jin, 
Tit,  and  Nit,  and  Wap,  and  Win, 

Tlie  train  that  wait  upon  her. 

Upon  a  grasshopper  they  got, 

And,  what  with  amble  and  with  trot. 

For  hedge  nor  ditch  they  spared  not, 

But  after  her  they  hie  them  : 
A  cobweb  over  them  they  throw, 
To  shield  the  wind  if  it  should  blow ; 
Themselves  they  wisely  could  bestow 

Lest  any  sliould  espy  them. 


JOSEPH   HALL. 

Here  should  not  be  omitted  a  name  of  great  note,  that  of  Joseph 
Hall,  who  was  born  in  1574,  and  was  successively  bishop  of  Exeter 
and  Norwich,  from  the  latter  of  Avhich  sees,  having  been  expelled 
by  the  Long  Parliament,  he  died,  after  protracted  sufferings  from 
imprisonment  and  poverty,  in  1656.  Hall  began  his  career  of 
authorship  by  the  publication  of  Three  Books  of  Satires,  in  1597, 
wdiile  he  was  a  student  at  Cambridge,  and  only  in  his  twenty- 
third  year.  A  continuation  followed  the  next  year  under  the  title 
of  Virgidemiarum  the  Three  last  Books  ;  and  the  whole  were 
afterw^ards  rejaiblislied  together,  as  Virgidemiarum  Six  Books ; 
that  is,  six  books  of  bundles  of  rods.  "  These  satires,"  says  War- 
ton,  who  has  given  an  elaborate  analysis  of  them,  "  are  marked 
with  a  classical  precision  to  wliich  English  poetry  had  yet  hardly 
attained.  They  are  replete  Avith  animation  of  style  and  sentiment. 
....  The  characters  are  delineated  in  strong  and  lively,  coloring, 


SYLVESTER.  509 

and  their  discriminations  are  touched  with  the  masterly  traces  of 
genuine  humor.  The  versification  is  equally  energetic  and  elegant 
and  the  fabric  of  the  couplets  approaches  to  the  modem  standard."  ^ 
Hall's  Satires  have  been  repeatedly  reprinted  in  modem  times. 


SYLVESTER. 


One  of  the  most  popular  poets  of  this  date  was  Joshua  Sylves- 
ter, the  translator  of  The  Divine  Weeks  and  Works,  and  other 
productions,  of  the  French  poet  Du  Bartas.  Sylvester  has  the 
honor  of  being  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the  early  favorites  of 
Milton.^  In  one  of  his  publications  he  styles  himself  a  Merchant- 
Adventurer,  and  he  seems  to  have  belonged  to  the  Puritan  party, 
which  may  have  had  some  share  in  influencing  Milton's  regard. 
His  translation  of  Du  Bartas  was  first  published  in  1605 ;  and  the 
seventh  edition  (beyond  which,  we  believe,  its  popularity  did  not 
carry  it)  appeared  in  1641.^  Nothing  can  be  more  miinspu'ed 
than  the  general  run  of  Joshua's  verse,  or  more  fantastic  and 
absurd  than  the  greater  number  of  its  more  ambitious  passages  ; 
for  he  had  no  taste  or  judgment,  and,  provided  the  stream  of  sound 
and  the  jingle  of  the  rhyme  were  kept  up,  all  was  right  in  his 
notion.  His  poetry  consists  chiefly  of  translations  from  the  French ; 
but  he  is  also  the  author  of  some  original  pieces,  the  title  of  one  of 
which,  a  courtly  offering  from  the  poetical  Puritan  to  the  preju- 
dices of  King  James,  may  be  quoted  as  a  lively  specimen  of  his 
style  and  genius :  —  "  Tobacco  battered,  and  the  pipes  shattered, 
about  their  ears  that  idly  idolize  so  base  and  barbarous  a  weed,  or 
at  leastwise  overlove  so  loathsome  a  vanity,  by  a  volley  of  holy 
shot  thundered  from  Mount  Helicon."  ^  But,  with  all  his  general 
flatness  and  frequent  absurdity,  Sylvester  has  an  uncommon  flow 

1  Hist,  of  Eng.  Poet.  iv.  338. 

2  Milton's  obligations  to  Sylvester  were  first  pointed  out  in  Considerations  on 
Milton's  Early  Reading,  and  the  Prima  Stamina  of  his  Paradise  Lost,  together  with 
Extracts  from  a  Poet  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  by  the  Kev.  Charles  Dunster  (who 
had  a  few  years  before  produced  his  well-known  edition  of  the  Paradise  Regained). 
1800. 

3  Ritson,  in  his  Bibliographia  Poetica,  makes  tlie  edition  of  1613  to  have  been 
anly  the  third  ;  but  it  is  called  the  fourth  on  the  title-page. 

*  8vo.  Lond.  1615. 

VOL.  I.  72 


oTO  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  liai*monious  words  at  times,  and  occasionally  even  some  iin« 
lines  and  felicitous  expressions.  His  contemporaries  called  him  the 
"  Silver-tongued  Sylvester,"  for  what  they  considered  the  sweet- 
ness of  his  versification  ;  and  some  of  his  best  passages  justify 
tile  title.  Indeed,  even  when  the  substance  of  what  he  writes 
approaches  nearest  to  nonsense,  the  sound  is  often  very  graceful, 
soothing  the  ear  with  something  like  the  swing  and  ring  of  Dry- 
den's  heroics.  But,  after  a  few  lines,  is  always  sure  to  come  in 
some  ludicrous  image  or  expression  which  destroys  the  effect  of 
the  whole.  The  translation  of  Du  Bartas  is  inscribed  to  King 
James  in  a  most  adulatory  and  elaborate  Dedication,  consisting  of 
a  string  of  sonnet-shaped  stanzas,  ten  in  all,  of  which  the  two  first 
are  a  very  fair  sample  of  the  mingled  good  and  bad  of  Sylvester's 
poetry  :  — 

To  England's,  Scotland's,  France',  and -Ireland's  king; 

Great  Emperor  of  Europe's  greatest  isles  ; 
Monarch  of  hearts,  and  arts,  and  everything 

Beneath  Bootes,  many  thousand  miles  ; 

Upon  whose  head  honour  and  fortune  smiles ; 
About  whose  brows  clusters  of  crowns  do  spring ; 

Whose  faith  him  Champion  of  the  Faith  enstyles  ; 
Whose  wisdom's  fame  o'er  all  the  world  doth  ring : 
Mnemosyne  and  her  fair  daughters  bring 

The  Daphnean  crown  to  crown  him  laureate  ; 
Whole  and  sole  sovereign  of  the  Thespian  spring, 

Prince  of  Parnassus  and  Pierian  state  ; 
And  with  their  ci'own  their  kingdom's  arms  they  yield, 
Thrice  three  pens  sunlike  in  a  Cvnthian  field ; 
Signed  by  themselves  and  their  High  Treasurer 
Baitas,  the  Great ;  engi-ossed  by  Sylvester. 

Our  sun  did  set,  and  yet  no  night  ensued  ; 

Our  woeful  loss  so  joyful  gain  did  bring. 

In  tenrs  we  smile,  amid  our  sighs  we  sing ; 
So  suddenly  our  dying  light  renewed. 
As  when  the  Arabian  only  bird  doth  burn 

Her  aged  body  in  sweet  flames  to  death, 
Out  of  her  cindei-s  a  new  bird  hath  breath, 
In  whom  the  beauties  of  the  first  return ; 
From  si)i(;y  aslies  of  the  sacred  urn 

Of  our  dead  Plienix,  dear  Elizabeth, 


SYLVESTER.  571 

A  new  true  Phenix  lively  flourishetli, 
Whom  greater  glories  than  the  first  adorn. 
So  much,  0  King,  thy  sacred  worth  presume-I-on, 
James,  thou  just  heir  of  England's  joyful  un-i-on. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  considerable  skill  in  versification 
liere,  and  also  some  ingenious  rhetoric  ;  but,  not  to  notice  the  per- 
vading extravagance  of  the  sentiment,  some  of  the  best  sounding 
of  the  lines  and  phrases  have  next  to  no  meaning  ;  and  the  close 
of  each  stanza,  that  of  the  last  in  particular,  is  in  the  manner  of  a 
ludicrous  travesty.  Many  of  Sylvester's  conceits,  however,  belong 
to  the  original  upon  which  he  worked,  and  which  upon  the  whole 
may  be  considered  as  fairly  represented,  perhaps  occasionally  im- 
proved, in  his  translation.  Some  passages  are  very  melodiously 
given,  —  the  following,  for  instance,  the  commencement  of  which 
may  put  the  reader  in  mind  of  Milton's  "  Hail,  holy  light !  off- 
spring of  heaven  first-born  "  :  — 

All  hail,  pure  lamp,  bright,  sacred,  and  excelling ; 
Sorrow  and  care,  darkness  and  dread  repelling  ; 
Tiiou  world's  great  taper,  wicked  men's  just  terror, 
Mother  of  truth,  true  beauty's  only  mirror, 
God's  eldest  daughter ;  0  !  how  thou  art  full 
Of  gi'ace  and  goodness  !     0  !  how  beautiful ! 

But  yet,  because  aU  pleasures  wax  unpleasant 
If  without  pause  we  still  possess  them  jjresent, 
And  none  can  right  discern  the  sweets  of  peace 
That  have  not  felt  war's  irksome  bitterness, 
And  swans  seem  whiter  if  swart  crows  be  by 
(For  contraries  each  other  best  descry), 
The  All's  architect  alternately  decreed 
That  Night  the  Day,  the  Day  should  Night  succeed. 

The  Night,  to  temper  Day's  exceeding  drought, 
Moistens  our  air,  and  makes  our  earth  to  sprout : 
Tiie  Night  is  she  that  all  our  travails  eases. 
Buries  our  cares,  and  all  our  griefs  appeases : 
The  Night  is  she  that,  with  her  sable  wing 
In  gloomy  darkness  iiushing  every  thing, 
Tlirough  all  the  world  dumb  silence  doth  distil, 
And  wearied  bones  with  quiet  sleep  doth  fill. 

Sweet  Niglit !  witliout  thee,  without  thee,  alas  I 
Our  life  were  loathsome,  even  a  liell,  to  pass  ; 


572  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

For  outward  pains  and  inward  passions  still, 
With  thousand  deaths,  would  soul  and  body  thrill. 
O  Night,  thou  pullest  the  proud  masque  away 
Wherewith  vain  actors,  in  this  world's  great  play, 
By  day  disguise  them.     For  no  difference 
Night  makes  between  the  peasant  and  the  prince, 
The  poor  and  rich,  the  prisoner  and  the  judge, 
The  tbul  and  fair,  the  master  and  the  drudge. 
The  fool  and  wise,  Barbarian  and  the  Greek ; 
For  Night's  black  mantle  covers  all  alike. 

He  that,  condemned  for  some  notorious  vice, 
Seeks  in  the  mines  the  baits  of  avarice. 
Or,  melting  at  the  furnace,  fineth  bright 
Our  soul's  dire  sulphur,  resteth  yet  at  night. 
He  that,  still  stooping,  tugs  against  the  tide 
His  laden  barge  alongst  a  river's  side. 
And,  filling  shores  with  shouts,  doth  melt  him  quite, 
Upon  his  pallet  resteth  yet  at  night. 
He  tliat  in  summer,  in  extremest  heat 
Scorched  all  day,  in  his  own  scalding  sweat. 
Shaves  with  keen  scythe  the  glory  and  delight 
Of  motley  meadows,  resteth  yet  at  night, 
And  in  the  ai'ms  of  his  dear  plieer  forgoes 
All  former  troubles  and  all  former  woes. 
Only  the  learned  Sisters'  sacred  minions. 
While  silent  Night  under  her  sable  pinions 
Folds  all  the  world,  with  painless  pain  they  tread 
A  sacred  path  that  to  the  heavens  doth  lead  ; 
And  higher  than  the  heavens  their  readers  raise 
Upon  the  wings  of  their  immortal  lays. 


CHAPMAN'S    HOMER. 

Of  the  translators  from  the  ancients  in  tliis  age,  b}^  far  the  great- 
est is  Chapman.  George  Chapman  was  born  at  Hitching  Hill,  in 
tlio  county  of  Hertford,  in  1557,  and  lived  till  1634.  Besides  his 
plays,  whicli  will  be  afterwards  noticed,  he  is  the  author  of  several 
original  poetical  pieces  ;  but  he  is  best  and  most  favorably  known 
by  his  versions  of  the  Ihad  and  the  Odyssey.     "  He  would  have 


CHAPMAN'S   HOMER.  573 

made  a  great  epic  poet,"  Charles  Lamb  has  said,  in  his  Specimens 
of  the  English  Dramatic  Poets,  turning  to  these  works  after  having 
characterized  his  dramas,  "  if,  indeed,  he  has  not  abundantly  shown 
himself  to  be  one :  for  his  Homer  is  not  so  properly  a  translation  as 
the  stories  of  Achilles  and  Ulysses  rewritten.  The  earnestness 
and  passion  which  he  has  put  into  every  part  of  these  poems 
would  be  incredible  to  a  reader  of  mere  modern  translations.  His 
almost  Greek  zeal  for  the  honor  of  his  heroes  is  only  paralleled  by 
that  fierce  spirit  of  Hebrew  bigotry  with  which  Milton,  as  if  per- 
sonating one  of  the  zealots  of  the  old  law,  clothed  himself  when 
he  sat  down  to  paint  the  acts  of  Samson  against  the  uncircumcised. 
The  great  obstacle  to  Chapman's  translations  being  read  is  their 
unconquerable  quaintness.  He  poxirs  out  in  the  same  breath  the 
most  just  and  natural,  and  the  most  violent  and  forced  exj)ressions. 
He  seems  to  grasp  whatever  words  come  first  to  hand  during  the 
impetus  of  inspiration,  as  if  all  other  must  be  inadequate  to  the 
divine  meaning.  But  passion  (the  all  in  all  in  poetry)  is  every- 
where present,  raising  the  low,  dignifying  the  mean,  and  putting 
■sense  into  the  absurd.  He  makes  his  readers  glow,  weep,  tremble, 
cake  any  affection  which  he  pleases,  be  moved  by  words  or  in  spite 
of  them,  be  disgusted  and  overcome  that  disgust."  Chapman's 
Homer  is,  in  some  respects,  not  unworthy  of  this  entlmsiastic  trib- 
ute. Few  writers  have  been  more  copiously  inspired  with  the 
genuine  frenzy  of  poetry  —  with  that  "fine-madness,"  which,  as 
Drayton  has  said  in  his  lines  on  Marlow,  "  rightly  should  possess 
a  poet's  brain."  Indeed,  in  the  character  of  his  genius,  out  of  the 
province  of  the  drama,  Chapman  bears  a  considei'able  resemblance 
to  Marlow,  whose  unfinished  translation  of  Musfeus's  Hero  and 
Leander  he  completed.  With  more  judgment  and  moi*e  care  he 
miffht  have  given  to  his  native  lanmiage,  in  his  version  of  the 
Iliad,  one  of  the  very  greatest  of  the  poetical  works  it  possesses. 
But  what,  except  the  most  extreme  ii'regularity  and  inequality, 
—  a  rough  sketch  rather  than  a  finished  performance,  —  was  to 
be  expected  from  his  boast  of  having  translated  half  the  poem  — 
namely,  the  last  twelve  books  —  in  fifteen  weeks  ?  Yet,  rude  and 
negligent  upon  the  whole  as  it  is.  Chapman's  is  by  far  the  most 
Homeric  Iliad  we  yet  possess.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  translator 
for  his  original  is  uncompromising  to  a  degree  of  the  ludicrous. 
''  Of  all  books,"  he  exclaims  in  his  Preface,  "  extant  in  all  kinds, 
Homer  Is  the  first  and  best ;  "  and  in  the  same  spirit,  in  quoting 


r)74  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

a  passa2:e  from  Pliny's  Natural  History  in  another  portion  of  his 
preliminary  mattei',  he  proceeds  first  to  turn  it  into  verse,  "  that 
no  prose  may  come  near  Homer."  In  spite,  however,  of  all  this 
eccentricity,  and  of  a  hurry  and  impetuosity  which  betray  him 
into  many  mistranslations,  and,  on  the  whole,  have  the  effect  per- 
haps of  giving  a  somewhat  too  tumultuous  and  stormy  representa- 
tion of  tlie  Homeric  poetry,  the  English  into  which  Chapman  trans- 
fuses the  meaning  of  the  mighty  ancient  is  often  singularly  and 
delicately  beautiful.  He  is  the  author  of  nearly  all  the  happiest 
of  the  compound  epithets  which  Pope  has  adopted,  and  of  many 
others  equally  musical  and  expressive.  "  Far-shooting  Phoebus," 
—  "the  ever-living  gods,"  —  "the  many-headed  hill,"  —  "the 
ivory-wristed  queen,"  —  are  a  few  of  the  felicitous  combinations 
with  which  he  has  enriched  his  native  tongue.  Carelessly  exe- 
cuted, indeed,  as  the  work  for  the  most  part  is,  there  is  scarcely 
a  page  of  it  that  is  not  irradiated  by  gleams  of  the  truest  ])oetic 
genius.  Often  in  the  midst  of  a  long  paragraph  of  the  most  chaotic 
versification,  the  fatigued  and  distressed  ear  is  surprised  by  a  few 
lines,  —  or  it  may  be  sometimes  only  a  single  line,  —  "musical  as 
is  Apollo's  lute,"  —  and  sweet  and  graceful  enough  to  compensate 
for  ten  times  as  much  ruggedness.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  fol- 
lowing version  of  part  of  the  description  of  the  visit  paid  by  Ulys- 
ses and  his  companions  to  the  shrine  of  Apollo  at  Chrysa,  in  the 
First  Book  :  — 

The  youths  crowned  cups  of  wine 

Drank  off,  and  filled  again  to  all :  tliat  day  was  held  divine, 
And  spent  in  pagans  to  the  Sun  ;  who  heard  Avith  pleased  ear : 
When  whose  bright  chariot  stooped  to  sea,  and  twiliglit  hid  the  clear, 
All  soumlly  on  their  cables  slept,  even  till  the  night  was  worn  ; 
And  when  tlie  Lady  of  the  Light,  the  rosy-fingered  morn, 
Rose  from  the  hills,  all  fresh  arose,  and  to  the  camp  retired, 
While  Plioebus  with  a  fore-right  wind  their  swelling  bark  inspired. 

And  here  are  a  few  more  verses  steeped  in  the  same  liquid  beauty, 
from  the  Catalogue  of  the  Ships,  in  the  Second  Book :  — 

Who  dwell  in  Pylos'  sandy  soil  and  Arene  ^  the  fair, 
In  Tliryon  near  Alphens'  fiood,  and  Aepy  fidl  of  air, 

1  Tliis  name  is  incorrectly  accented,  but  Pope  has  copied  tlie  error.  "Warton  bad 
ft  copj'  of  CliMinnan's  translation,  which  had  belonged  to  Pope,  and  in  which  the 
latter  bad  noted  many  of  the  interpolations  of  bis  predecessor,  of  wbom,  indeed,  as 
Warton   remarks,  a  diligent  observer  will  easily  discern  that  be  was  no  careless 


HARINGTON.     FAIRFAX.     FANSHAWE  576 

In  Cyparysseus,  Araphygen,  and  little  Pteleon, 
The  town  where  all  the  Elects  dwell,  and  famous  Doreon ; 
Where  all  the  Muses,  opposite,  in  strife  of  poesy, 
To  ancient  Thamyris  of  Thrace,  did  use  him  cruelly : 
He  coming  from  Eurytus'  ^  court,  the  wise  Oechalian  king, 
Because  he  proudly  durst  affirm  he  could  more  sweetly  sing 
Than  that  Piei'ian  race  of  Jove,  they,  angry  with  his  vaunt. 
Bereft  his  eyesiglit  and  his  song,  that  did  the  ear  enchant. 
And  of  his  skill  to  touch  his  harp  disfurnished  his  hand : 
All  these,  in  ninety  hollow  keels,  grave  Nestor  did  command. 

Almost  tlie  whole  of  this  Second  Book,  incleed,  is  admirably  trans- 
lated :  in  the  harangues,  particularly,  of  Agamemnon  and  the 
other  generals,  in  the  earlier  part  of  it,  all  the  fire  of  Homer  burns 
and  blazes  in  English  verse.^ 


HARINGTON.     FAIRFAX.     FANSHAWE. 

Or  the  translators  of  foreign  poetry  which  belong  to  this  period, 
three  are  very  eminent.  Sir  John  Harington's  translation  of  the 
Orlando  Furioso  first  appeared  in  1591,  when  the  author  was  in 

reader.  Hist.  Eng.  Poet.  iv.  272.  This  copy,  flescribed  in  the  newspaper  account 
as  having  been  presented  to  Warton  by  Bishop  Warburton,  is  stated  to  liave  been 
knocked  down  for  12/.  at  the  sale  by  auction  in  April  1860  of  the  library  of  the  late 
Rev.  John  Mitford.  In  the  preface  to  his  own  Iliad,  Pope  has  allowed  to  Chapman, 
"  a  daring  fiery  spirit  that  animates  his  translation,  which  is  something  like  what 
one  might  imagine  Homer  himself  might  have  writ  before  he  arrived  to  years  of 
discretion."  Dryden  has  told  us  also  that  Waller  used  to  say  he  never  could  read 
it  without  incredible  transport.  In  a  note  upon  Warton's  History,  by  the  late  Mr. 
Park,  it  is  stated  that  "  Chapman's  own  copy  of  his  translation  of  Homer,  corrected  by 
Jiim  throughout  for  a  future  edition,  was  purchased  for  five  shillings  from  the  shop 
of  Edwards  by  Mr.  Steevens,  and,  at  the  sale  of  his  books  in  1800,  was  transferred 
to  the  invaluable  library  of  Mr.  Heber."  This  important  copy,  it  appears,  cannot 
now  be  found.  Chapman's  Iliad  in  a  complete  form  was  first  printed  without  date, 
but  certainly  after  the  accession  of  James  I.,  to  whose  son.  Prince  Henry,  it  is  dedi- 
cated. The  Odyssey,  which  is  in  the  common  heroic  verse  of  ten  syllables,  was 
published  in  1614, 

1  This  name  is  also  misaccented.  Both  works  are  probablj'  very  incorrectly 
printed. 

■^  Chapman's  Translation  of  the  Iliad,  formerly  a  scarce  book,  has  now  been  ren 
(lered  generally  accessible  by  two  reprints  of  it :  the  first  edited  by  the  late  Dr.  W 
Cooke  Taylor,  2  vols.  Bvo.  1843 ;  the  second  (along  with  the  Odyssey  and  others  of 
Chapman's  translations)  by  Mr.  R.  Hooper,  5  vols.  8vo.  1857. 


576  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

his  thirtieth  year.  It  does  not  convey  all  the  glow  and  poetry  of 
Ariosto  ;  but  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  performance  of  great  ingenuity 
and  talent.  The  translation  of  Tasso's  great  epic  by  Edward  Fair- 
fax was  first  published,  under  the  title  of  Godfrey  of  Bulloigne,  or 
the  Recoverie  of  Jerusalem,  in  1600.  This  is  a  work  of  true 
genius,  full  of  passages  of  great  beauty  ;  and,  although  by  no 
means  a  perfectly  exact  or  ser%nle  version  of  the  Italian  original, 
is  throughout  executed  with  as  much  care  as  taste  and  spirit.^  Sir 
Richard  Fanshawe  is  the  author  of  versions  of  Camoens's  Lusiad, 
of  Guarini's  Pastor  Fido,  of  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  vEneid,  of 
the  Odes  of  Horace,  and  of  the  Querer  por  Solo  Querer  (To  love 
for  love's  sake)  of  the  Spanish  dramatist  Mendoza.  Some  pas- 
sages from  the  last-mt ntioiied  work,  which  was  published  in  1649, 
may  be  found  in  Lamb's  Specimens,^  the  ease  and  flowing  gayety 
of  which  never  have  been  excelled  even  in  orimnal  writino;.  The 
Pastor  Fido  is  also  rendered  with  much  spirit  and  elegance.  Fan- 
shawe is,  besides,  the  author  of  a  Latin  translation  of  Fletcher's 
Faithful  Shepherdess,  and  of  some  original  poetry.  His  genius, 
however,  was  sprightly  and  elegant  rather  than  lofty,  and  perhaps 
he  does  not  succeed  so  well  in  translating  poetry  of  a  more  serious 
style  :  at  least,  Mickle,  the  modern  translator  of  Camoens,  in  the 
disconi'se  prefixed  to  his  own  version,  speaks  with  great  contempt 
of  that  of  his  predecessor  ;  affirming  not  only  that  it  is  exceed- 
ingly unfaithful,  but  that  Fanshawe  had  not  "  the  least  idea  of  the 
dignity  of  the  epic  style,  or  of  the  true  spirit  of  poetical  translation." 
He  seems  also  to  sneer  at  Fanshawe's  Lusiad  because  it  was  "pub- 
lished during  the  usurpation  of  Cromwell,"  —  as  if  even  the  poets 
and  translators  of  that  time  must  have  been  a  sort  of  illeo-itimates 
and  usurpers  in  their  way.  But  Fanshawe  was  all  his  life  a  steady 
royalist,  and  served  both  Charles  I.  and  his  son  in  a  succession  of 
high  emplo}Tnents.  Mickle,  in  truth,  was  not  the  man  to  appre- 
ciate either  Fanshawe  or  Cromwell. 

1  Reprinted    in  the   Tenth    and   Fourteenth  Volumes   of   "  Knight's  Weekly 
V^olume." 

2  Vol.  ii.  pj-   242-253. 


DRUMMOND. 

One  of  the  most  graceful  poetical  writers  of  the  reign  of  James 
I.  is  William  Drumraond,  of  Hawthornden,  near  Edinburgh  ;  and 
he  is  further  deserving  of  notice  as  the  first  of  his  countrymen,  at 
least  of  any  eminence,  who  aspired  to  write  in  English.  He  has 
left  us  a  quantity  of  prose  as  well  as  verse ;  the  former  very  much 
resembling  the  style  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  his  Arcadia,  —  the 
latter,  in  manner  and  spirit,  formed  more  upon  the  model  of  Sur- 
rey, or  rather  upon  that  of  Petrarch  and  the  other  Italian  poets 
whom  Suri-ey  and  many  of  his  English  successors  imitated.  No 
early  English  imitator  of  the  Italian  poetry,  however,  has  excelled 
Drummond,  either  in  the  sustained  melody  of  his  verse,  or  its  rich 
vein  of  thouirhtful  tenderness.  We  will  transcribe  one  of  his  son- 
nets  as  a  specimen  of  the  fine  moral  painting,  tinged  with  the  col- 
oring of  scholarly  recollections,  in  which  he  delights  to  indulge  :  — 

Trust  not,  sweet  soul,  those  curled  waves  of  gold 
With  gentle  tides  that  on  your  temples  flow, 
Nor  temples  spread  with  flakes  of  virgin  snow, 

Nor  snow  of  cheeks  with  Tyrian  grain  enrolled. 

Trust  not  those  shining  lights  which  wrought  my  wod 
When  first  I  did  their  azure  rays  behold, 

Nor  voice  whose  sounds  more  strange  effects  do  show 
Than  of  the  Thracian  harper  have  been  told ; 

Look  to  this  dying  lily,  fading  rose, 

Dark  hyacinth,  of  late  whose  blushing  beams 

Made  all  the  neighbouring  herbs  and  grass  rejoice, 
And  think  how  little  is  'twixt  life's  extremes  : 

The  cruel  tyrant  that  did  kill  those  flowers 

Shall  once,  ay  me !  not  spare  that  spring  of  youi*s. 


DAVIES. 


A  REMARKABLE  poem  of  this  age,  first  published  in  1599,  is  the 
Nosce  Teipsum  ^  of  Sir  John  Davies,  who  was  successively  solicitor- 
and  attorney-general  in  the  reign  of  James,  and  had  been  appointed 
to  the  place  of  Chief-Justice  of  the  King's  Bench,  when  he  died, 

I  The  full  title  is  Nosce  Teipsum.     This  oracle  expounded  in  two  eletjies  :  —  1. 
Of  human  knowledge.     2.  Of  the  soul  of  man  and  the  immortality  thr      >f. 
VOL.  1.  73 


o78  ENGLISH    LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

before  he  could  enter  upon  its  duties,  in  1626.  Davies  is  also  tlie 
author  of  a  poem  on  dancing,  entitled  Orchestra,  and  of  some  minor 
pieces,  all  distinguislied  by  \'ivacity  as  well  as  precision  of  style  ; 
but  he  is  only  now  remembered  for  his  philosophical  poem,  the  ear- 
liest of  the  kind  in  the  language.  It  is  written  in  rhyme,  in  t]ie 
common  heroic  ten-syllable  yerse,  but  disjposed  in  quatrains,  like 
the  early  play  of  Misogonus  already  mentioned,  and  other  poetry 
of  the  same  era,  or  like  Sir  Thomas  Overbury's  poem  of  The  Wife, 
the  Gondibert  of  Sir  William  Davena.nt,  and  the  Annus  Mirabilis 
of  Dryden,  at  a  later  period.  No  one  of  these  writers  has  man- 
aged this  difficult  stanza  so  snccessfully  as  Davies  :  it  has  the  dis- 
advantage of  requiring  the  sense  to  be  in  general  closed  at  certain 
regularly  and  quickly  recurring  turns,  which  yet  are  very  ill  adapted 
for  an  effective  pause  ;  and  even  all  the  skill  of  Dryden  has  been 
unable  to  free  it  from  a  certain  air  of  monotony  and  languor,  —  a 
circumstance  of  Avhich  that  poet  may  be  supposed  to  have  been 
himself  sensible,  since  he  wholly  abandoned  it  after  one  or  two 
early  attempts.  Davies,  however,  has  conquered  its  difficulties  ; 
and,  as  has  been  observed,  "  perhaps  no  language  can  produce  a 
poem,  extending  to  so  great  a  length,  of  more  condensation  of 
thought,  Of  m  which  fewer  languid  verses  will  be  found."  ^  In 
fact,  it  is  bv  this  condensation  and  sententious  brevity,  so  carefully 
filed  and  elaborated,  however,  as  to  involve  no  sacrifice  of  pers]ii- 
cuity  or  fulness  of  expression,  that  he  has  attained  his  end.  Every 
quatrain  is  a  pointed  expression  of  a  se])arate  thought,  like  one  of 
Rochefom?ault's  Maxims  ;  each  thought  being,  by  great  skill  and 
painstaking  in  the  packing,  made  exactly  to  fit  and  to  fill  the  same 
case.  It  may  be  doubted,  however,  whether  Davies  would  not 
have  produced  a  still  better  poem  if  he  had  chosen  a  measure 
which  would  have  allowed  him  greater  freedom  and  real  variety  ; 
unless,  indeed,  his  poetical  talent  was  of  a  sort  that  required  the 
suggestive  aid  and  guidance  of  such  artificial  restraints  as  he  had 
to  cope  with  in  this  ;  and  what  would  have  been  a  bondage  to  a 
more  fiery  and  teeming  imagination,  was  rather  a  support  to  his. 
He  w^rote,  among  other  things,  a  number  of  acrostics  upon  the 
name  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  which,  says  Ellis,  "  are  probably  the 
best  acrostics  ever  written,  and  all  equally  good  ;  but  they  seem  to 
prove  that  their  author  was  too  fond  of  struggling  with  useless  dif- 
ficulties." 2  Perhaps  ho  found  the  limitations  of  the  acrostic,  too, 
R  help  rathcf  tlinn   a  hindrance. 

1  Hallam,  Lit.  of  Europe,  ii.  -227.  ^  gpec.  of  Early  Eng.  Poets,  ii.  R70. 


DONNE. 

The  title  of  the  Metaphysical  School  of  poetry,  which  in  one 
sense  of  the  words  mio;ht  have  been  ffiven  to  Davies  and  his  imita- 
tors,  has  been  conferred  by  Dryden  upon  anotlier  race  of  writers, 
whose  founder  was  a  contemporary  of  Davies,  the  famous  Dr.  John 
Donne,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  Donne,  who  died  at  the  age  of  fifty- 
eight,  in  1631,  is  said  to  have  written  most  of  his  poetry  before  the 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  none  of  it  was  published  till  late 
in  the  reign  of  James.  It  consists  of  lyrical  pieces  (entitled  Songs 
and  Sonnets),  epithalamiums  or  marriage-songs,  funeral  and  other 
elegies,  satires,  epistles,  and  divine  poems.  On  a  superficial  inspec- 
tion, Donne's  verses  look  like  so  many  riddles.  They  seem  to  bo 
written  upon  the  principle  of  making  the  meaning  as  difficult  to  be 
found  out  as  possible,  - —  of  using  all  the  resources  of  language,  not 
to  express  thought,  but  to  conceal  it.  Nothing  is  said  in  a  direct, 
natural  manner ;  conceit  follows  conceit  without  hitermission  ;  the 
most  remote  analogies,  the  most  far-fetched  images,  the  most  unex- 
pected turns,  one  after  another,  sui'prise  and  often  puzzle  the  un- 
derstanding ;  while  things  of  the  most  opposite  kinds  —  the  harsh 
and  the  harmonious,  the  graceful  and  the  grotesque,  the  grave  and 
the  gay,  the  pious  and  the  profane  —  meet  and  mingle  in  the 
strangest  of  dances.  But,  running  through  all  this  bewilderment, 
a  deeper  insight  detects  not  only  a  vein  of  the  most  exuberant  wit, 
but  often  the  sunniest  and  most  delicate  fancy,  and  the  truest  ten- 
derness and  depth  of  feeling.  Donne,  though  in  tlie  latter  part  of 
liis  life  he  became  a  very  serious  and  devout  poet  as  well  as  man, 
began  by  writing  amatory  lyrics,  the  strain  of  which  is  anything 
rather  than  devout ;  and  in  this  kind  of  writino-  he  seems  to  have 
formed  his  poetic  style,  Avhich,  for  such  compositions,  would,  to  a 
mind  like  his,  be  the  most  natural  and  expressive  of  any.  The 
species  of  lunacy  which  quickens  and  exalts  the  imagination  of  a 
lover,  would,  in  one  of  so  seething  a  brain  as  he  was,  strive  to  ex- 
pend itself  in  all  sorts  of  novel  and  wayward  combinations,  just  as 
Shakspeare  has  made  it  do  in  his  Romeo  and  Juliet,  wliose  rich 
intoxication  of  spirit  he  has  by  nothing  else  set  so  livingly  before 
us  as  by  making  them  thus  exhaust  all  the  eccentricities  of  lan- 
guage in  tlieir  struggle  to  give  expression  to  that  inexpressible  pas- 
sion which  had  taken  captive  the  whole  heart  and  being  of  both. 
Donne's  later  poetry,  in  addition  to  the  same  abundance  and  orig- 


580  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

inality  of  thought,  often  running  into  a  wildness  and  extravagance 
not  so  excusable  here  as  in  his  erotic  verses,  is  famous  for  the  sin- 
gular movement  of  the  versification,  which  has  been  usually  de- 
scribed as  the  extreme  degree  of  the  rugged  and  tuneless.  Pope 
has  o-iven  us  a  translation  of  his  four  Satires  into  modern  lancfuaoe, 
which  he  calls  The  Satires  of  Dr.  Donne  Versified.  Their  harsh- 
ness, as  contrasted  with  the  music  of  his  lyrics,  has  also  been  refer- 
red to  as  proving  that  the  English  language,  at  the  time  when 
Donne  wrote,  had  not  been  brought  to  a  sufficiently  advanced  state 
for  the  writing  of  heroic  verse  in  perfection.^  That  this  last  no- 
tion is  wholly  unfounded,  numerous  examples  sufficiently  testify : 
not  to  speak  of  the  blank  verse  of  the  dramatists,  the  rhymed 
heroics  of  Shakspeare,  of  Fletcher,  of  Jonson,  of  Spenser,  and  of 
other  writers  contemporary  with  and  of  earlier  date  than  Donne, 
are,  for  the  most  part,  as  perfectly  smooth  and  regular  as  any  that 
have  since  been  written  ;  at  all  events,  whatever  irregularity  may 
be  detected  in  them,  if  they  be  tested  by  Pope's  narrow  gamut,  is 
clearly  not  to  be  imputed  to  any  immaturity  in  the  language. 
These  writers  evidently  preferred  and  cultivated,  deliberately  and 
on  principle,  a  wider  compass,  and  freer  and  more  varied  flow,  of 
melody  than  Pope  had  a  taste  or  an  ear  for.  Nor  can  it  be  ques- 
tioned, we  think,  that  the  peculiar  construction  of  Donne's  verse  in 
his  satires  and  many  of  his  other  later  poems  was  also  adopted  by 
choice  and  on  system.  His  lines,  though  they  will  not  suit  the  see- 
saw style  of  reading  verse,  —  to  which  he  probably  intended  that 
they  should  be  invincibly  impracticable,  —  are  not  without  a  deep 
and  subtle  music  of  their  own,  in  which  the  cadences  respond  to 
the  sentiment,  when  enunciated  with  a  true  feeling  of  all  that  they 
convey.  They  are  not  smooth  or  luscious  verses,  certainly  ;  nor  is 
it  contended  that  the  endeavor  to  raise  them  to  as  vigorous  and  im- 
pressive a  tone  as  possible,  by  depriving  them  of  all  over-sweetness 
or  liquidity,  has  not  been  carried  too  far ;  but  we  cannot  doubt  that 
whatever  harshness  they  have  was  designedly  given  to  them,  and 
was  conceived  to  infuse  into  them  an  essential  part  of  their  relish. 
Here  is  one  of  Donne's  Songs  :  — 

Sweetest  love,  I  do  not  go 

For  weariness  of  thee, 
Nor  in  hope  tlie  world  can  show 

A  fitter  love  for  me  ; 
^  See  article  on  Donne  in  Penny  Cyelopffidia,  vol.  ix.  p.  85. 


DONNE.  681 

But,  since  that  I 
Must  die  at  last,  'tis  best 
Thus  to  use  myself  in  jest 

By  feigned  death  to  die. 

Yesternight  the  sun  went  hence, 

And  yet  is  here  to-day  ; 

He  hath  no  desire  nor  sense, 

Nor  half  so  short  a  way  : 

Then  fear  not  me, 
But  believe  that  I  shall  make 
Hastier  journeys,  since  I  take 
More  wings  and  spurs  than  he. 

O  how  feeble  is  man's  power  ! 

That,  if  good  fortune  fall, 
Cannot  add  another  hour. 
Nor  a  lost  hour  recall ; 

But  come  bad  chance, 
And  we  join  to  it  our  strength, 
And  we  teach  it  art  and  length 
Itself  o'er  us  to  advance. 

When  thou  sigh'st  thou  sigh'st  not  viUid, 

But  sigh'st  my  soul  away  ; 
"When  thou  weep'st,  unkindly  kind, 
My  life's  blood  doth  decay. 

It  cannot  be 
That  thou  lov'st  me  as  thou  say'st, 
If  in  thuie  my  life  thou  waste, 
Which  art  the  life  of  me. 

Let  not  thy  divining  heart 
•  •  Forethink  me  any  ill ; 

Destiny  may  take  thy  part 
And  may  thy  fears  fultil ; 

But  think  that  we 
Are  but  laid  aside  to  sleep : 
They  who  one  another  keep 
Alive  ne'er  parted  be. 

Somewhat  fantastic  as  this  may  be  thovight,  it  is  surely,  notwittk 
standing,  full  of  feeling  ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  delicate  than 


5S2  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

the  execution.  Nor  is  it  possible  that  the  writer  of  such  verses  can 
have  Avanted  an  ear  for  melody,  however  capriciously  he  may  have 
sometimes  experimented  upon  language,  in  the  effort,  as  we  con- 
ceive, to  bring  a  deeper,  more  expressive  music  out  of  it  than  it 
would  readily  yield.  We  add  one  of  his  elegies  as  a  specimen  of 
his  more  elaborate  style  :  — 

Language,  thou  art  too  narrow  and  too  weak 

To  ease  us  now ;  great  sorrows  cannot  speak. 

If  we  could  sigh  our  accents,  and  weep  words, 

Grief  wears,  and  lessens,  that  tears  breath  affords. 

Sad  hearts,  the  less  they  seem,  the  more  they  are  ; 

So  guiltiest  men  stiuid  mutest  at  the  bar ; 

Not  that  they  know  not,  feel  not  their  estate, 

But  extreme  sense  hath  made  them  desperate. 

Sorrow  !  to  whom  we  owe  all  that  we  be. 

Tyrant  in  the  fifth  and  greatest  monarchy, 

Was  't  that  she  did  possess  all  hearts  before 

Thou  hast  killed  her,  to  make  thy  empire  more  ? 

Knew'st  thou  some  would,  that  knew  her  not,  lament, 

As  in  a  deluge  perish  the  innocent  ? 

Was  't  not  enough  to  have  that  palace  won, 

But  thou  must  raze  it  too,  that  was  undone  ? 

Had''  t  thou  stay'd  tliere,  and  looked  out  at  her  eyes, 

All  liiul  adored  thee,  that  now  from  thee  flies ; 

For  they  let  out  more  Ught  than  they  took  in ; 

They  told  not  when,  but  did  the  day  begin. 

She  was  too  sapphu-ine  and  clear  for  thee ; 

Clay,  flir.t,  and  jet  now  thy  fit  dwelhngs  be. 

Alas,  she  was  too  pure,  but  not  too  weak  ; 

Whoe'er  saw  crystal  ordnance  but  would  break  ? 

And,  if  we  be  thy  conquest,  by  her  fall 

Thou  hast  lost  thy  end  ;  in  her  we  perish  all : 

Or,  if  we  live,  we  live  but  to  rebel. 

That  know  her  better  now,  who  knew  her  well. 

If  we  should  vapour  out,  and  pine  and  die, 

Since  she  first  went,  that  were  not  misery  ; 

She  changed  our  world  with  hers  ;  now  she  is  gone, 

Mu-th  and  pi'os])erity  is  oppression. 

For  of  all  moral  virtues  she  was  all 

That  etiiics  speak  of  virtues  cardinal : 

Her  soul  was  Paradise  ;  the  cherubm 

Set  to  keep  it  was  grace,  that  ke})t  out  sin : 


SHAKSPEARE.  58S 

She  had  no  more  than  let  in  death,  for  we 

All  reap  consumption  from  one  fruitful  tree. 

God  took  her  hence  lest  some  of  us  should  love 

Her,  like  that  plant,  him  and  iiis  laws  above  ; 

And,  when  we  tears,  he  mercy  shed  in  this, 

To  raise  our  minds  to  heaven,  where  now  she  is  ; 

Who,  if  her  virtues  would  have  let  her  stay, 

We  had  had  a  saint,  have  now  a  holiday. 

Her  heart  was  that  strange  bush,  where  sacred  fir*\ 

Religion,  did  not  consume,  but  inspire 

Such  piety,  so  chaste  use  of  God's  day, 

That  what  we  turn  to  feast  she  turned  to  pray, 

And  did  prefigure  hei-e,  in  devout  taste. 

The  rest  of  her  high  Sabbath,  which  shall  last. 

Angels  did  hand  her  up,  who  next  God  dwell, 

For  she  was  of  that  order  whence  most  fell. 

Her  body  's  left  with  us,  lest  some  had  said 

She  could  not  die,  except  they  saw  her  dead  ; 

For  from  less  virtue,  and  less  beauteousness, 

The  Gentiles  framed  them  Gods  and  Goddesses. 

The  ravenous  earth  that  now  woos  her  to  be 

Earth  too  will  be  a  Lemnia ;  ^  and  the  tree 

That  wraps  that  crystal  in  a  wooden  round  ^ 

Shall  be  took  up  spruce  filled  with  diamond. 

And  we,  her  sad  glad  friends,  all  bear  a  part 

Of  grief,  for  all  would  break  a  Stoic's  heart. 


SHAKSPEARE'S  MINOR   POEMS. 

In  the  long  list  of  the  minor  names  of  the  Elizabethan  poet  :y 
appears  the  bright  name  of  William  Shakspeare.  Shakspeare 
published  his  Venus  and  Adonis  in  1593,  and  his  Tarquin  and 
Lucrece  in  1594  ;  his  Passionate  Pilgrim  did  not  appear  till  1599  ; 
the  Sonnets  not  till  1609.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  first- 
mentioned  of  these  pieces,  which,  in  his  dedication  of  it  to  the  Earl 

1  The  earth  of  the  isle  of  Lemnos  was  supposed  by  the  ancients  to  be  medic- 
inal. 

2  We  have  ventured  to  introduce  this  word  instead  of  "  Tomb,"  which  is  tli'< 
reading  in  the  edition  before  us  (Poems,  &c.,  8vo.  Loud.  1669),  and  which  cannot 
possibly  be  right. 


584  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  Southampton,  he  calls  the  first  heir  of  his  invention,  was  writ 
ten  some  years  before  its  publication  ;  and,  altliough  the  Tarquin 
and  Lucrece  may  have  been  published  immediately  after  it  v^^as 
composed,  it,  too,  may  be  accounted  an  early  production.  We 
have  no  positive  evidence  that  any  wholly  original  drama,  such  as 
would  be  considered  a  work  of  invention,  had  yet  been  produced 
by  Shakspeare ;  and,  notwithstanding  the  force  of  some  of  the 
reasons  which  have  been  lately  urged  ^  for  carrying  back  some  of 
his  original  plays  to  a  date  preceding  the  year  1593,  we  are  still 
inclined  to  think  it  probable  that  all  the  other  poetry  we  have  of 
Shakspeare's  was  composed  at  least  before  he  had  fairly  given  him- 
self up  to  dramatic  poetry,  or  had  done  anything  in  that  line  to 
which  he  could  properly  set  his  name,  or  by  which  he  could  hope 
that  he  would  live  and  be  remembei-ed  among  the  poets  of  his 
country.  But,  although  this  minor  poetry  of  Shakspeare  sounds 
throughout  like  the  utterance  of  that  spirit  of  highest  invention 
and  sweetest  song  before  it  had  found  its  proper  theme,  much  is 
here  also,  immature  as  it  may  be,  that  is  still  all  Shakspearian,  — 
the  vivid  conception,  the  inexhaustible  fertility  and  richness  of 
thought  and  imagery,  the  glowing  passion,  the  gentleness  withal 
that  is  ever  of  the  poetry  as  it  was  of  the  man,  the  enamored 
sense  of  beauty,  the  living  words,  the  ear-delighting  and  heart- 
enthralling  music ;  nay,  even  the  dramatic  instinct  itself,  and  the 
idea  at  least,  if  not  always  the  realization,  of  that  sentiment  of  all 
subordinatino;  and  consummatino;  art  of  which  his  dramas  are  the 
most  wonderful  exemplification  in  literature. 

Resuming  now  the  history  of  that  dramatic  poetry  Avhich  is  the 
chief  glory  of  the  Elizabethan  age  of  our  literature,  we  begin 
with  a  notice  of  these  productions,  which  constitute  by  much  the 
most  valuable  part  of  it. 

1  Both  by  Mr.  Knight  and  by  Mr.  Collier.  Mr.  Knight  conceives,  also,  that  the 
Tarquin  and  Lucrece  is  a  composition  of  seven  or  eiglit  years'  later  date  tlian  the 
Venus  and  Adonis. 


SHAKSPEARE'S   DRAMATIC   WORKS. 

William  Shakspeare,  born  in  1564,  is  enumerated  as  one  of 
the  proprietors  of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  in  1589 ;  is  sneered  at 
by  Robert  Greene  in  1592,  in  terms  which  seem  to  imply  that  he 
had  already  acquu*ed  a  considerable  reputation  as  a  dramatist  and 
a  writer  in  blank  verse,  though  the  satirist  insinuates  that  he  was 
enabled  to  make  the  show  he  did  chiefly  by  the  plunder  of  his 
predecessors  ;  ^  and  in  1598  is  spoken  of  by  a  critic  of  the  day  as 
indisputably  the  greatest  of  English  dramatists,  both  for  tragedy 
and  comedy,  and  as  having  already  produced  his  Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona,  Comedy  of  Errors,  Love's  Labours  Lost,  Love's  La- 
bours Won  (generally  supposed  to  be  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well),^ 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Merchant  of  Venice,  Richard  11. , 
Richard  III.,  Henry  IV.,  King  John,  Titus  Androiiicus,  and 
Romeo  and  Juhet.^  There  is  no  ground,  however,  for  feeling 
assured,  and,  indeed,  it  is  rather  improbable,  that  we  have  here  a 
complete  catalogue  of  the  plays  written  by  Shakspeare  up  to  this 
date  ;  nor  is  the  authority  of  so  evidently  loose  a  statement,  em- 
bodying, it  is  to  be  supposed,  the  mere  report  of  the  town,  suffi- 
cient even  to  establish  absolutely  the  authenticity  of  every  one  of 
the  plays  enumerated.  It  is  very  possible,  for  example,  that  Meres 
may  be  mistaken  in  assigning  Titus  Andronicus  to  Shakspeare ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  may  be  the  author  of  Pericles,  and  may  have 
already  written  that  play  and  some  others,  although  Meres  does 
not  mention  them.  The  only  other  direct  or  positive  information 
we  possess  on  this  subject  is,  that  a  History  called  Titus  Androni- 
cus, presumed  to  be  the  play  afterwards  published  as  Shakspeare's, 
was  entered  for  publication  at  Stationers'  Hall  in  1593  ;  that  the 

^  "  There  is  an  upstart  crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers,  that,  with  his  tiger's 
heart  wrapt  in  a  player's  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bombast  out  a  blank 
verse  as  the  best  of  you  ;  and,  being  an  absolute  Johannes  Factotum,  is,  in  his  own 
conceit,  the  only  Shake-scene  in  a  country."  —  Greene's  Groatsworth  of  Wit,  1592. 

■^  But  the  Rev.  Joseph  Hunter,  in  the  Second  Part  of  New  Illustrations  of  the 
Life,  Studies,  and  Writings  of  Shakespeare,  8vo.  Lond.  1844,  and  previously  in  a 
Disquisition  on  the  Tempest,  separately  published,  has  contended  that  it  must  be 
tlie  Tempest ;  and  I  have  more  recently  stated  some  reasons  for  supposing  that  it 
may  be  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  (see  The  English  of  Shakespeare,  1857  ;  Prole- 
gomena, pp.  8,  9). 

•'  Palla.lis  Taniia  ;  Wit's  Treasury.  Being  the  Second  Part  of  Wit's  Common 
wealth.     By  Francis  Meres.     1598,  p.  282. 

VOL.   I.  74 


586  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Second  Part  of  Henry  VI.  (if  it  is  by  Shakspeare),  in  its  original 
form  of  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  betwixt  the  Two  Fa- 
mous Houses  of  Yoi'k  and  Lancaster,  was  pubHshed  in  1594 ;  the 
Third  Part  of  Henry  VI.  (if  by  Shakspeare),  in  its  original  form 
of  The  True  Tragedy  of  Richard  Duke  of  York,  in  1595  ;  his  Rich- 
ard II.,  Richard  III.,  and  Romeo  and  JuHet,  in  1597  ;  Love's 
Labours  Lost  and  the  First  Part  of  Henry  IV.  in  1598  (the  latter, 
however,  having  been  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  the  preceding 
year);  "a  corrected  and  augmented"  edition  of  Romeo  and  Juliet 
in  1599 ;  Titus  Andronicus  (supposing  it  to  be  Shakspeare's),  the 
Second  Part  of  Henry  IV.,  Henry  V.,  in  its  original  form,  the 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  and  the 
Merchant  of  Venice,  in  1600  (the  last  having  been  entered  at  Sta- 
tioners' Hall  in  1598)  ;  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  in  its  orig- 
inal form,  in  1602  (but  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  the  year 
before^);  Hamlet  in  1603  (entered  likewise  the  year  before)  ;  a 
second  edition  of  Hamlet,  "  enlarged  to  almost  as  mvich  again  as 
it  was,  according  to  the  true  and  perfect  copy,"  in  1604  ;  Lear 
hi  1608,  and  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  Pericles,  in  1609  (each 
being  entered  the  preceding  year) ;  Othello  not  till  1622,  six 
years  after  the  author's  death ;  and  all  the  other  plays,  namely, 
the  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  the  Winter's  Tale,  the  Comedy 
of  Errors,  King  John,  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  As  You  Like 
It,  King  Henry  VIII.,  Measure  for  Measure,  Cymbeline,  Macbeth, 
the  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  Julius  Caesar,  Antony  and  Cleopatra, 
Coriolanus,  Timon  of  Athens,  the  Tempest,  Twelfth  Night,  the 
First  Part  of  Henry  VI.  (if  Shakspeare  had  anything  to  do  with 
that  play  ^),  and  also  the  perfect  editions  of  Henry  V.,  the  Merry 
Wives  of  AVindsor,  and  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  Henry  VI., 
not,  so  far  as  is  known,  till  they  appear,  along  with  those  formerly 
printed,  in  the  first  folio,  in  1623. 

Such,  then,  is  the  sum  of  the  treasure  that  Shakspeare  has  left 
us  ;  but  the  revolution  which  his  genius  wrought  upon  our  national 

1  This  first  sketch  of  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  lias  been  reprinted  for  the 
Shakespeare  Society,  under  the  care  of  Mr.  Halliwell,  1842. 

-  See,  upon  tiiis  question,  Mr.  Knight's  Essay  upon  the  Tiiree  Parts  of  King 
Kenry  VL,  and  Kini?  Kichard  ILL,  in  the  Seventh  Volume  of  his  Library  Edition 
of  Shakspere,  pp.  1-119.  And  see  also  Mr.  Halliwell's  Introduction  to  the  reprint 
of  The  First  Sketches  of  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  King  Henry  the  Sixth 
(the  First  Part  of  tlie  Contention  and  the  True  Tragedy),  edited  by  him  for  the 
Shakespeare  Society,  1843. 


SIIAKSPEARE.  587 

drama  is  placed  in  the  clearest  light  by  comparing  his  earliest  plays 
with  the  best  which  the  language  possessed  before  his  time.  He 
has  made  all  his  predecessors  obsolete.  While  his  Merchant  of 
Venice,  and  his  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  and  his  Romeo  ano 
Juliet,  and  his  King  John,  and  his  Richard  II.,  and  his  Henry  IV., 
and  his  Richard  III.,  all  certainly  produced,  as  we  have  seen,  be- 
fore the  year  1598,  are  still  the  most  universally  familiar  composi- 
tions in  our  literature,  no  other  dramatic  work  that  had  then  been 
written  is  now  popularly  read,  or  familiar  to  anybody  except  to  a 
few  professed  investigators  of  the  antiquities  of  om'  poetry.  Where 
are  now  the  best  productions  even  of  such  writers  as  Greene,  and 
Peele,  and  Marlow,  and  Decker,  and  Marston,  and  Webster,  and 
Thomas  Heywood,  and  Middleton  ?  They  are  to  be  found  among 
our  Select  Collections  of  Old  Plays,  —  publications  intended  rather 
for  the  mere  preservation  of  the  pieces  contained  in  them,  than  for 
their  diti'usion  among  a  multitude  of  readers.  Or,  if  the  entire 
works  of  a  few  of  these  elder  dramatists  have  recently  been  col- 
lected and  republished,  this  has  still  been  done  only  to  meet  the 
demand  of  a  comparatively  very  small  number  of  curious  students, 
anxious  to  possess  and  examine  for  themselves  whatever  relics  are 
still  recoverable  of  the  old  world  of  our  literature.  Popularly 
known  and  read  the  works  of  these  writers  never  again  will  be  ; 
there  is  no  more  prospect  or  probability  of  this  than  there  is  that 
the  plays  of  Shakspeare  will  ever  lose  their  po])ularity  among  his 
countrymen.  In  that  sense,  everlasting  oblivion  is  their  portion, 
as  everlasting  life  is  his.  In  one  form  only  have  they  any  chance 
of  again  attracting  some  measure  of  the  general  attention,  namely, 
in  the  form  of  such  partial  and  very  limited  exhibition  as  Lamb  has 
given  us  an  example  of  in  his  S])ecimens.  And  herein  we  see  the 
first  great  difference  between  the  plays  of  Shakspeare  and  those 
of  his  predecessors,  and  one  of  the  most  immediately  conspicuous 
of  the  improvements  which  he  introduced  into  dramatic  writing. 
He  did  not  create  our  regular  drama,  but  he  regenerated  and 
wholly  transformed  it,  as  if  by  breathing  into  it  a  new  soul.  We 
possess  no  dramatic  production  anterior  to  his  appearance  that  is  at 
once  a  work  of  high  genius  and  of  anything  like  equably  sustained 
power  throughout.  Very  brilliant  flights  of  poetry  there  are  in 
many  of  the  pieces  of  our  earlier  dramatists ;  but  the  higher  they 
soar  in  one  scene,  the  lower  they  generally  seem  to  thhik  it  expe- 
dient to  sink  in  the  next.      Their  great  efforts  are  made  only  by 


588  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

fits  and  starts :  for  the  most  part  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  best 
of  them  are  either  merely  extravagant  and  absurd,  or  do  nothing 
but  trifle  or  dose  away  over  their  task  with  the  expenditure  of 
hardly  any  kind  of  faculty  at  all.  This  may  have  arisen  in  part 
from  their  own  want  of  judgment  or  Avant  of  painstaking,  in  part 
from  the  demands  of  a  very  rude  condition  of  the  popular  taste ; 
but  the  effect  is  to  invest  all  that  they  have  bequeathed  to  us  with 
Jin  air  of  barbarism,  and  to  tempt  us  to  take  their  finest  displays  of 
successful  daring  for  mere  capricious  inspirations,  resembling  the 
sudden  impulses  of  fury  by  which  the  listless  and  indolent  man  of 
the  woods  will  sometimes  be  roused  for  the  instant  from  his  habit- 
ual laziness  and  passiveness  to  an  exhibition  of  superhuman  strength 
and  activity.  From  this  savage  or  savage-looking  state  our  drama 
was  first  redeemed  by  Shakspeare.  Even  Milton  has  spoken  c' 
his  "  wood-notes  wild  "  ;  and  Thomson,  more  unceremoniously,  has 
baptized  him  "wild  Shakespeare,"^  —  as  if  a  sort  of  half  insane 
irregularity  of  genius  were  the  quality  that  chiefly  distinguished 
him  from  other  great  writers.  If  he  be  a  "  wild  "  writer,  it  is  in 
comparison  with  some  dramatists  and  poets  of  succeeding  times, 
who,  it  mvist  be  admitted,  are  sufficiently  tame  :  compared  with 
the  dramatists  of  his  own  age  and  of  the  age  immediately  preced- 
ing, —  with  the  general  throng  of  the  writers  from  among  whom 
he  emerged,  and  the  coruscations  of  w^hose  feebler  and  more  desul- 
tory genius  he  has  made  pale,  —  he  is  distinguished  from  them  by 
nothing  wdiich  is  more  visible  at  the  first  glance  than  by  the  supe- 
rior regularity  and  elaboration  that  mark  his  productions.  Marie  iv, 
and  Greene,  and  Kyd  may  be  called  wild,  and  wayward,  and  care- 
less ;  but  the  epithets  are  inapplicable  to  Shakspeare,  by  whom, 
in  truth,  it  was  that  the  rudeness  of  our  early  drama  was  first  re- 
fined, and  a  spirit  of  high  art  put  into  it,  which  gave  it  order  and 
symmetry  as  well  as  elevation.  It  was  the  union  of  the  most  con- 
summate judgment  with  the  highest  creative  power  that  made 
Shakspeare  the  miracle  that  he  was,  —  if,  indeed,  Ave  ought  not 
rather  to  say  that  such  an  endowment  as  his  of  the  poetical  faculty 
necessarily  implied  the  clearest  and  truest  discernment  as  well  as 
the  utmost  productive  energy,  —  even  as  the  most  intense  heat 
must  ilhuninate  as  w^ell  as  warm. 

But,  undoubtedly,  his  dramas  are  distingaiished  from  those  of  his 
predecessors   by  much   more   than   merely  this  superiority  in   the 
1  "Is  not  wild  Shakespeare  thine  and  Nature's  boast?  "  —  Tliomson's  Summer. 


SHAKSPEARE.  589 

general  principles  upon  -which  they  are  constructed.  Such  rare  pas- 
sages of  exquisite  poetry,  and  scenes  of  sublimity  or  true  passion, 
as  sometimes  brighten  the  dreary  waste  of  their  productions,  are 
equalled  or  excelled  in  almost  every  page  of  his  ;  —  "  the  highest 
heaven  of  invention,"  to  which  they  ascend  only  in  far  distant 
flights,  and  where  their  strength  of  pinion  never  sustains  them 
long,  is  the  famiHar  home  of  his  genius.  Other  qualities,  again, 
which  charm  us  in  his  plays  are  nearly  unknown  in  theirs.  He 
first  informed  our  drama  with  true  wit  and  humor.  Of  boisterous, 
uproarious,  blackguard  merriment  and  buffoonery  there  is  no  want 
in  our  earlier  dramatists,  nor  of  mere  gibing  and  jeering  and  vul- 
gar personal  satire  ;  but  of  true  airy  wit  there  is  little  or  none.  In 
the  comedies  of  Shakspeare  the  wit  plays  and  dazzles  like  dancing 
light.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  excellence,  indeed,  for  whicli 
he  was  most  admired  by  his  contemporaries ;  for  quickness  and 
felicity  of  repartee  they  placed  him  above  all  other  play-writers. 
But  his  humor  was  still  more  his  own  than  his  Avit.  In  that  rich 
but  delicate  and  subtile  spirit  of  drollery,  moistening  and  softening 
whatever  it  touches  like  a  gentle  oil,  and  penetrating  through  all 
infoldings  and  rigorous  incrustments  into  the  kernel  of  the  ludi- 
crous  that  is  in  everything,  which  mainly  created  Malvolio,  and 
Shallow,  and  Slender,  and  Dogberry,  and  Verges,  and  Bottom, 
and  Lancelot,  and  Launce,  and  Costard,  and  Touchstone,  and  a 
score  of  other  clowns,  fools,  and  simpletons,  and  which,  gloriously 
overflowing  in  FalstaflF,  makes  his  wit  exhilarate  like  wine,  Shaks- 
peare has  had  almost  as  few  successors  as  he  had  predecessors. 

And  in  these  and  all  his  other  delineations  he  has,  like  every 
other  great  poet,  or  artist,  not  merely  observed  and  described,  but, 
as  we  have  said,  created,  or  invented.  It  is  often  laid  down  that 
the  drama  should  be  a  faithful  picture  or  representation  of  real 
life  ;  or,  if  this  doctrine  be  given  up  in  regard  to  the  tragic  or  more 
impassioned  drama,  because  even  kings  and  queens  in  the  actual 
world  never  do  declaim  in  the  pomp  of  blank  verse,  as  they  do  on 
the  stage,  still  it  is  insisted  that  in  comedy  no  character  is  admis- 
sible that  is  not  a  transcript,  —  a  little  embellished  perhaps,  but 
still  substantially  a  transcript  from  some  genuine  flesh  and  blood 
original.  But  Shakspeare  has  shown  that  it  belongs  to  such  an 
imagination  as  his  to  create  in  comedy,  as  well  as  in  tragedy  or  in 
poetry  of  any  other  kind.  Most  of  the  charactei's  that  have  just 
been  mentioned  are  as  truly  the  mere  creations  of  the  p(^et's  brain 


590  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

as  are  Ariel,  or  Caliban,  or  the  Witches  in  Macbeth.  If  any  mod' 
ern  critic  will  have  it  that  Shakspeare  must  have  actually  seen 
Malvolio,  and  Launce,  and  Touchstone,  before  he  could  or  at  least 
would  have  drawn  them,  we  w^ould  ask  the  said  critic  if  he  himsell 
has  ever  seen  such  characters  in  real  life  ;  and,  if  he  acknowledge, 
as  he  needs  must,  that  he  never  has,  we  would  then  put  it  to  him 
to  tell  us  why  the  contemporaries  of  the  gi'eat  dramatist  might  not 
have  enjoyed  them  in  his  plays  without  ever  having  seen  them  else- 
where, just  as  we  do,  —  or,  in  other  words,  why  such  delineations 
might  not  have  perfectly  fulfilled  their  dramatic  purpose  then  as 
well  as  now,  Avhen  they  certainly  do  not  represent  anything  that  is 
to  be  seen  upon  earth,  any  more  than  do  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho 
Panza.  There  might  have  been  professional  clowns  and  fools,  in 
the  age  of  Shakspeare  such  as  are  no  longer  extant ;  but  at  no 
time  did  there  ever  actually  exist  such  fools  and  clowns  as  his. 
These  and  other  similar  personages  of  the  Shakspearian  drama 
are  as  much  mere  poetical  phantasmata  as  are  the  ci'eations  of  the 
kindred  humor  of  Cervantes.  Are  they  the  less  amusing  or  in- 
teresting, however,  on  that  account  ?  —  do  w^e  the  less  sympathize 
w^ith  them  ?  —  nay,  do  w^e  feel  that  they  are  the  less  naturally 
drawn  ?  that  they  have  for  us  less  of  a  truth  and  life  tl'.an  the 
most  faithful  copies  from  the  men  and  women  of  the  real  Avorld  ? 

But  in  the  region  of  reality,  too,  there  is  no  othei*  drama  so  rich 
as  that  of  Shakspeare.  He  has  exhausted  the  old  Avorld  of  our 
actual  experience  as  well  as  imagined  for  us  new  worlds  of  his 
own.^  What  other  anatomist  of  the  human  heart  has  searched  its 
hidden  core,  and  laid"  bare  all  the  strength  and  weakness  of  our 
mysterious  nature,  as  he  has  done  in  the  gushing  tenderness  of  Ju- 
liet, and  the  "  fine  frenzy  "  of  the  discrowned  Lear,  and  the  sub- 
lime melancholy  of  Hamlet,  and  the  wrath  of  the  perplexed  and 
tempest-torn  Othello,  and  the  eloquent  misanthropy  of  Timon,  and 
the  fixed  hate  of  Shylock  ?  What  other  poetry  has  given  shape  to 
anything  half  so  terrific  as  Lady  Macbeth,  or  so  winning  as  Rosa- 
lind, or  so  full  of  gentlest  womanhood  as  Desdemona?  In  what 
other  drama  do  we  behold  so  living  a  humanity  as  in  his  ?  Who 
has  given  us  a  scene  either  so  crowded  with  diversities  of  charac- 
ter, or  so  stirred  with  the  heat  and  hurry  of  actual  existence  ?  The 
men  and  the  manners  of  all  countries  and  of  all  ages  are  there: 

1  "  Each  cliange  of  many-coloured  life  he  drew, 

Exhausted  worlds,  and  then  imagined  new."  —  Johnson. 


SHAKSPEARE.  591 

the  lovers  and  warriors,  the  priests  and  prophetesses,  of  the  old 
heroic  and  kingly  times  of  Greece,  —  the  Athenians  of  the  days 
of  Pericles  and  Alcibiades, — the  proud  patricians  and  turbulent 
commonalty  of  the  earliest  period  of  republican  Rome,  —  Csesar, 
and  Brutus,  and  Cassius,  and  Antony,  and  Cleopatra,  and  the  other 
splendid  figures  of  that  later  Roman  scene,  —  the  kings,  and 
queens,  and  princes,  and  courtiers  of  barbaric  Denmark,  and 
Roman  Britain,  and  Britain  before  the  Romans,  —  those  of  Scot- 
land in  the  time  of  the  English  Heptarch}',  —  those  of  England 
and  France  at  the  era  of  Magna  Charta,  —  all  ranks  of  the  people 
of  almost  every  reign  of  our  subsequent  history  from  the  end  of 
the  fourteenth  to  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  —  not  to 
speak  of  Venice,  and  Verona,  and  Mantua,  and  Padua,  and  Illy- 
ria,  and  Navarre,  and  the  Forest  of  Arden,  and  all  the  other  towns 
and  lands  which  he  has  peopled  for  us  with  their  most  real  inhab- 
itants. 

Nor  even  in  hLs  plays  is  Shakspeare  merely  a  dramatist.  Apart 
altogether  from  his  dramatic  power  he  is  the  greatest  poet  that 
ever  lived.  His  sympathy  is  the  most  universal,  his  imagination 
the  most  plastic,  his  diction  the  most  expressive,  ever  given  to  any 
writer.  His  poetry  has  in  itself  the  power  and  vai'ied  excellences 
of  all  other  poetry.  While  in  grandeur,  and  beauty,  and  passion, 
and  sweetest  music,  and  all  the  other  higher  gifts  of  song,  he  may 
be  ranked  with  the  greatest,  —  with  Spenser,  and  Chaucer,  and 
Milton,  and  Dante,  and  Homer,  —  he  is  at  the  same  time  more 
nervous  than  Dryden,  and  more  sententious  than  Pope,  and  more 
sparkling  and  of  moi'e  .abounding  conceit,  -sA-hen  he  chooses,  than 
Donne,  or  Cowley,  or  Butler.  In  whose  handling  was  language 
ever  such  a  flame  of  fire  as  it  is  in  his  ?  His  wonderful  potency 
in  the  use  of  this  instrument  would  alone  set  him  above  all  other 
writers.^     Language  has  been  called  the  costuine  of  thought :  it  is 

1  Whatever  may  be  the  extent  of  the  vocabulary  of  the  English  language,  it  is 
certain  that  the  most  copious  writer  has  not  employer]  more  than  a  fraction  of  the 
entire  number  of  words  of  which  it  consists.  It  lias  teen  stated  that  some  inqui- 
ries set  on  foot  by  the  telegraj)}!  companies  have  led  to  the  conclusion  that  tiie  num- 
ber of  words  in  ordinary  use  does  not  exceed  3000.  A  rough  calculation,  founded 
on  Mrs.  Clarke's  Concordance,  gives  about  21,000  as  the  number  to  be  found  in  the 
Plays  of  Shakspeare,  without  counting  inflectional  forms  as  distinct  words.  Prob- 
ably the  vocabulary  of  no  other  of  our  great  writers  is  nearly  so  extensive.  Todd'8 
Verbal  Index  would  not  give  us  more  than  about  7000  for  Milton  ;  so  that,  if  we  were 
to  add  even  fifty  percent,  to  compensate  for  Milton's  inferior  voluininousness,  the  Mil- 
tonic  vocabularj-  would  still  be  not  more  tliati  half  as  copious  as  the  Sluikspeariaii. 


692  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 

such  a  costume  as  leaves  ai'e  to  the  tree  or  blossoms  to  the  flower, 
and  grows  out  of  what  it  adorns.  Every  great  and  original  writer 
accordingly  has  distinguished,  and  as  it  were  individualized,  him- 
self as  much  by  his  diction  as  by  even  the  sentiment  which  it 
embodies  ;  and  the  invention  of  such  a  distinguishing  style  is  one 
of  the  most  unequivocal  evidences  of  genius.  But  Shakspeare  has 
invented  twenty  styles.  He  has  a  style  for  every  one  of  his  great 
characters,  by  which  that  character  is  distinguished  from  every 
other  as  much  as  Pope  is  distinguished  by  his  style  from  Dryden. 
or  Milton  from  Spenser.  And  yet  all  the  while  it  is  he  himself 
with  his  own  peculiar  accent  that  we  hear  in  every  one  of  them. 
The  style,  or  manner  of  expression,  that  is  to  say,  —  and  if  the 
manner  of  expression,  then  also  the  manner  of  thinking,  of  which 
the  expression  is  always  the  product,  —  is  at  once  both  that  which 
belongs  to  the  particular  character  and  that  which  is  equally  nat- 
ural to  the  poet,  the  conceiver  and  creator  of  the  character.  This 
double  individuality,  or  combination  of  two  individualities,  is  inher- 
ent of  necessity  in  all  dramatic  Avriting  ;  it  is  what  distinguishes 
the  imaginative  here  from  the  literal,  the  artistic  from  tlie  real,  a 
scene  of  a  play  from  a  police  report.  No  more  in  this  than  in  any 
other  kind  of  literature,  properly  so  called,  can  we  dispense  with 
that  infusion  of  the  mind  from  which  the  work  has  proceeded,  of 
something  belonging  to  that  mind  and  to  no  other,  which  is  the 
very  life  or  constituent  principle  of  all  art,  the  one  thing  that 
makes  the  difference  between  a  creation  and  a  copy,  between  the 
poetical  and  the  mechanical. 


CHAPMAN.  WEBSTER.  MIDDLETON.  DECKER.  CHETTLE. 
MARSTON.  TAILOR.  TOURNEUR.  ROWLEY.  THOMAS 
HEYWOOD. 

Shakspeare  died  in  1616.  The  space  of  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, or  more,  over  which  his  career  as  a  writer  for  the  stage 
extends,  is  illustrated  also  by  the  names  of  a  crowd  of  other  dram- 
atists, many  of  them  of  very  remarkable  genius  ;  but  Shakspeare 
is  distinguished  from  the  greater  number  of  his  contemporaries 
nearly  as  much  as  he  is  from  his  immediate  predecessors.     With 


SHAKSPEARE'S   CONTEMPORARIES.  593 

regard  to  tlie  latter,  it  has  been  well  observed  by  a  critic  of  emi- 
nent justness  and  delicacy  of  taste,  that,  while  they  "  possessed 
great  power  over  the  passions,  had  a  deep  insight  into  the  darkest 
depths  of  human  nature,  and  Avere,  moreover,  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the  word,  poets,  of  that  higher  power  of  creation  with  which 
Shakspeare  was  endowed,  and  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  call 
up  into  vivid  existence  all  the  various  characters  of  men  and  all 
the  events  of  human  life,  Marlow  and  his  contemporaries  had  no 
great  share,  —  so  that  their  best  dramas  may  be  said  to  represent 
to  us  only  gleams  and  shadowings  of  mind,  confused  and  hurried 
actions,  from  which  we  are  rather  led  to  guess  at  the  nature  of 
the  persons  acting  before  us  than  instantaneously  struck  with  a 
perfect  knowledge  of  it ;  and,  even  amid  their  highest  eftbrts,  with 
them  the  fictions  of  the  drama  are  felt  to  be  but  faint  semblances 
of  reality.  If  we  seek  for  a  poetical  image,  a  burst  of  passion,  a 
beautiful  sentiment,  a  trait  of  nature,  we  seek  not  in  vain  in  the 
works  of  our  very  oldest  dramatists.  But  none  of  the  predeces- 
sors of  Shakspeare  must  be  thought  of  along  with  him,  when  he 
appears  before  us,  like  Prometheus,  moulding  the  figures  of  men, 
and  breathing  into  them  the  animation  and  all  the  passions  of 
life."^  "The  same,"  proceeds  this  writer,  "may  be  said  of  almost 
all  his  illustrious  contemporaries.  Few  of  them  ever  have  con- 
ceived a  consistent  character,  and  given  a  perfect  drawing  and  col- 
oring of  it ;  they  have  rarely,  indeed,  inspired  us  with  such  belief 
in  the  existence,  of  their  personages  as  we  often  feel  towards  those 
of  Shakspeare,  and  which  makes  us  actually  unhappy  unless  we 
can  fully  understand  everything  about  them,  so  like  are  they  to 

living  men The  plans  of  their  dramas  are  irregular  and 

confused,  their  characters  often  wildly  distorted,  and  an  air  of 
imperfection  and  incompleteness  hangs  in  general  over  the  whole 
composition  ;  so  that  the  attention  is  wearied  out,  the  interest 
flags,  and  we  rather  hurry  on,  than  are  hurried,  to  the  horrors  of 
the  final  catastrophe."  ^  In  other  words,  the  generality  of  the 
dramatic  writers  who  were  contemporary  with  Shakspeare  still 
belong  to  the  semi-barbarous  school  which  subsisted  before  he 
began  to  write. 

George  Chapman,  already  mentioned  as  the  translator  of  Homer, 

J  Analyticai  Essays  on  the  Early  English  Dramatists  (understood  to  be  by  the 
late  Henry  MacKenzie),  in  Blackwood's  Magazine,  vol.  ii.  p.  657. 
^  Ibid. 

VOL.  I.  75 


594  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

was  born  six  or  seven  years  before  Shakspeare,  but  did  not  begin 
to  write  for  the  staoe  till  about  the  year  1595,  after  which  date  he 
produced  sixteen  plays  that  have  survived,  besides  one  in  the  com- 
position of  which  he  was  assisted  by  Ben  Jonson  and  Marston,  and 
two  others  in  which  he  and  Shirley  joined.  One  anonymous  play, 
The  Second  Maiden's  Tragedy  (printed  for  the  first  time  in  1824), 
and  five  others  that  are  lost,  have  also  been  attributed  to  him.  All 
these  pieces  were  probably  produced  before  the  year  1620,  although 
he  lived  till  1634.  Chapman's  best  knoAvn,  and  probably  also  his 
best,  plays  are  his  tragedy  of  Bussy  d'Ambois,  reprinted  in  the 
third  volume  of  Dilke's  Old  Plays  (1814)  ;  his  comedy  of  Mon- 
sieur d'Olive,  in  the  same  collection  ;  and  his  comedies  of  All 
Fools,  The  Widow's  Tears,  and  Eastward  Hoe  (the  last  the  piece 
in  which  he  was  assisted  by  Jonson  and  Marston),  in  Dodsley's 
collection.^  "  Of  all  the  English  play-writers,"  says  Lamb,  "  Chap- 
man perhaps  approaches  nearest  to  Shakspeare  in  the  descriptive 
and  didactic,  in  passages  which  are  less  purely  dramatic.  Dra- 
matic imitation  was  not  his  talent.  He  could  not  go  out  of  himself, 
as  Shakspeare  could  shift  at  pleasure,  to  inform  and  animate  other 
existences  ;  but  in  himself  he  had  an  eye  to  perceive,  and  a  soul 
to  embrace,  all  forms." ^  He  was  a  great  poet  ;  but  his  genius 
was  essentially  epic,  not  dramatic. 

Webster,  Middleton,  Decker,  Chettle,  Marston,  Robert  Tailor, 
Tourneur,  and  Rowley,  may  also  be  reckoned  among  the  dramatic 
writers  of  considerable  note  who  were  the  contemporaries  of  Shaks- 
peare, though  most,  or  all,  of  them  survived  him,  and  none  of 
them  began  to  write  so  early  as  he  did.  John  Webster  was  parish 
clerk  of  St.  Andrews,  Holborn,  and  a  member  of  the  Merchant 
Tailors'  Company.  Of  four  dramatic  pieces  of  Avhich  he  is  the 
sole  author,  besides  two  comedies  which  he  Avrote  in  conjunction 
with  Rowley,  and  other  two  in  which  he  assisted  Decker,  his  trage- 
dies of  The  White  Devil  and  the  Duchess  of  Malfy  are  the  most 
celebrated.  The  character  of  Vittoria  Corombona,  the  White 
Devil,  is  drawn  with  great  spirit ;  and  the  delineation  of  the 
Duchess  of  Malfy  displays  not  only  remarkable  power  and  origi- 
nality of  imagination,  but  a  dramatic  skill  and  judgment  which  per- 
haps no  one  of  the  other  Avriters  we  have  named  along  with  Web- 

1  Tlic  comorl^'  of  All  Fools  appeared  for  tlie  first  time  in  the  second  (Kecd's) 
edition  of  Dod^Iey. 
*  Specimens,  i.  107. 


WEBSTER.  59c 

ster  has  anywhere  matched.  None  of  them  has  either  so  httle 
extravagance,  or  so  much  of  the  true  terrific.  "  To  move  a  liorroi 
skilfully,"  says  Lamb, —  "to  touch  a  soul  to  the  quick,  —  to  lay 
upon  fear  as  much  as  it  can  bear,  —  to  wean  and  weary  a  life  till 
it  is  ready  to  drop,  and  then  step  in  with  mortal  instruments  to  take 
its  last  forfeit,  — 'this  only  a  Webster  can  do.  Writers  of  an  infe- 
rior genius  may  'upon  horror's  head  horrors  accumulate,'  but  they 
cannot  do  this."  ^  Webster  seems  to  have  been  a  slow  writer, 
which  it  may  be  presumed  few  of  his  contemporaries  were.  In 
an  advertisement  prefixed  to  his  White  Devil,  he  says,  "  To  those 
who  report  I  was  a  long  time  in  finishing  this  tragedy,  I  confess  I 
do  not  write  with  a  goose-quill  winged  with  two  feathers ;  and,  if 
they  will  needs  make  it  my  fiiult,  I  must  answer  them  with  that 
of  Euripides  to  Alcestides,  a  tragic  writer.  Alcestides  objecting 
that  Euri}>ides  had  only  in  three  days  com})Osed  three  verses, 
whereas  himself  had  written  three  hundred ;  Thou  tell'st  truth, 
quoth  he ;  but  here's  the  diiference :  thine  shall  only  be  read  for 
three  days,  whereas  mine  shall  continue  three  ages."  It  will  be 
seen  from  this  passage  that  Webster  was  not  wanting  in  a  due 
sense  of  his  own  merits  ;  he  seems  also  to  have  had  a  sufficient 
contempt  for  the  public  taste  of  his  day,  or  at  least  for  that  of  the 
ordinary  audiences  of  the  theatre  where  his  piece  had  been  brought 
out :  —  "I  have  noted,"  he  says,  "  most  of  the  people  that  come  to 
that  playhouse  resemble  those  ignox-ant  asses  who,  visiting  station- 
ers' shops,  their  use  is  not  to  inquire  for  good  books,  but  new 
books  ;  "  and  he  adds,  "  Should  a  man  present  to  such  an  auditory 
the  most  sententious  tragedy  that  ever  was  written,  observing  all 
the  critical  laws,  as  height  of  style  and  gravity  of  person  ;  enrich 
it  with  the  sententious  Chorus,  and,  as  it  were,  enliven  death  in 
the  passionate  and  weighty  Nuntius  ;  yet,  after  all  this  divine  rap- 
ture, ....  the  breath  that  comes  from  the  uncapable  multitude 
is  able  to  poison  it."  It  is  difficult  to  discern  in  all  this  the  mod- 
esty which  Lamb  so  much  praises.^  Neither  does  Webster  greatly 
shine  as  a  critic  of  the  performances  of  others  in  a  subsequent  para- 
gva]»h  of  his  advertisement  or  preface,  in  which  he  gives  us  his 
opinion  of  some  of  his  contemporaries  :  —  "I  have  ever,"  he 
observes,  "  truly  cherished  my  good  opinion  of  other  men's  wor- 
thy labours,  especially  of  that  full  and  heightened  style  of  Master 
(^hajiman  ;  the  laboured  and  understanding  works  of  Master  Jonson  ; 
the  no  less  worthy  composures  of  the  most  worthily  excellent 
1  Specimens,  i.  234.  -  Ibid.  i.  23G. 


596  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

Master  Beaumont  and  Master  Fletcher ;  and  lastly,  without  wrong 
last  to  be  named,  the  right  happy  and  copious  industry  of  Master 
Shakespeare,  Master  Decker,  and  Master  Hey  wood.''''  All  this  ma}* 
be  fi'ank  enough,  as  Lamb  calls  it,  but  it  is  certainly  not  very  dis- 
ci'iminating. 

Thomas  Middleton  is  the  author,  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  between 
twenty .  and  thirty  dramatic  pieces  ;  his  associates  in  those  which 
he  did  not  Avrite  entirely  himself  being  Decker,  Rowley,  Jonson, 
Fletcher,  and  iNlassinger.  One  of  his  plays,  a  comedy  called  The 
Old  Law,  which  he  wrote  in  conjunction  with  Rowley  (and  which 
was  afterwards  improved  by  Massinger),  appears  to  have  been 
acted  so  early  as  1599;  and  another  was  published  in  1602.  The 
greater  number  of  his  pieces  are  comedies,  and,  compared,  with 
most  of  his  contemporaries,  he  has  a  good  deal  of  comic  talent ; 
but  his  most  noted  dramatic  production  is  his  tragi-comedy  of  The 
Witch,  which  remained  in  manuscript  till  a  small  impression  of  it 
was  printed,  in  1778,  by  Isaac  Reed,  after  it  had  been  suggested 
by  Steevens  that  it  had  probably  been  written  before  ]\Iacbeth, 
and  might  have  been  the  source  from  which  Shakspeare  borrowed 
his  Witches  in  that  play.  The  commentators  would  have  every- 
thing, in  Shakspeare  and  everybody  else,  to  be  borrowed  or  stolen  : 
they  have  the  genius  and  the  zeal  of  thief-catchers  in  ferreting  out 
and  exposing  all  transferences  among  writers,  real  and  imaginary, 
of  thoughts,  words,  and  syllables  ;  and  in  the  present  case,  as  in 
many  others,  their  professional  ardor  seems  to  have  made  a. great 
deal  out  of  very  little.  Lamb,  in  an  admirable  criticism,  has 
pointed  out  the  essential  differences  between  the  Avitches  of 
Shakspeare  and  those  of  Middleton,^  from  whose  play,  however, 
Shakspeare  appears  to  have  taken  a  fev/  lines  of  his  incantations  ; 
unless,  indeed  —  which  we  think  not  improbable  —  the  verses  in 
question  were  common  popular  rhymes,  preserved  among  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  nursery  or  the  country  fireside.  Middleton's  witches 
have  little  of  the  supernatural  awfulness  of  Shakspeare's.  "  Their 
names,  and  some  of  the  properties,"  as  Lamb  observes,  "  which 
Middleton  has  mven  to  his  hags,  excite  smiles.  The  Weird  Sisters 
are  serious  things.  Their  presence  cannot  coexist  with  mirth. 
But,  in  a  lesser  degree,  the  witches  of  Middleton  are  fine  creations. 
Their  power,  too,  is,  in  some  measure,  over  the  mind.  They  raise 
jars,  jealousies,  strifes,  like  a  thick  scurf  o'er  life.'' 

Still  another  and  lower  species  of  Avitcli  —  "  the  plai  i,  tradi- 
1  Specimens,  i.  187. 


DECKER.     CHETTLE.     MARSTON.     TAILOR.  697 

tional,  old-woman  witch,  of  our  ancestors,"  as  Lamb  has  called 
her,  "  poor,  deformed,  and  ignorant,  the  terror  of  villages,  herself 
amenable  to  a  justice  "  —  is  the  heroine  of  the  tragi-comedy  of  The 
Witch  of  Edmonton,  the  joint  production  of  Rowley,  Ford,  and 
Decker.  Thomas  Decker  was  the  author  of,  or  a  contributor  to, 
more  than  thirty  plays  in  all,  nearly  two  thirds  of  which,  however, 
have  perished.  He  has  not  much  high  imagination,  but  consider- 
able liveliness  of  fancy,  and  also  no  little  power  of  pathos.  His 
best  pieces  are  his  comedies  of  Old  Fortunatus  and  The  Honest 
Whore  ;  and  his  spirited  Satiromastix,  the  principal  character  in 
which,  Horace  Junior,  is  a  humorous  caricature  of  Ben  Jonson, 
who  had  previously  ridiculed  Decker  upon  the  stage,  in  Crispinus, 
the  hero  of  his  satirical  comedy  of  The  Poetaster.  Decker  is  also 
supposed  to  be  the  author  of  the  best  parts  of  the  very  touching 
play  of  Patient  Grissil,  which  appeared  in  1603,  and  which  has 
been  reprinted,  from  a  unique  copy  of  that  edition,  for  the  Shakes- 
peare Society,  under  the  care  of  Mr.  Collier,  1841.  It  was  written 
by  him  in  conjunction  with  William  Haughton,  who  is  the  author 
of  several  plays  of  little  merit,  and  Henry  Chettle,  who  was  one 
of  the  most  active  and  prolific  dramatic  writers  of  this  time, 
although  of  eight-and-thirty  plays,  in  wh°ch  he  is  stated  to  have 
been  more  or  less  concerned,  only  the  present  and  three  others 
have  been  preserved.  He  has  force  as  well  as  fertility,  but  it  is 
apt  to  run  into  rant  and  absurdity.  John  Marston  is  the  author 
of  eight  plays,  and  appears  to  have  enjoyed  in  his  own  day  a  great 
reputation  as  a  dramatist.  He  is  to  be  classed,  however,  with 
Sackville  and  Chapman,  as  having  more  poetical  than  dramatic 
genius  ;  although  he  has  given  no  proof  of  a  creative  imagination 
equal  to  what  is  displayed  in  the  early  poetry  of  the  former,  and 
the  best  of  Chapman's  is  instinct  with  a  diviner  fire.  But  he  is, 
nevertheless,  a  very  imposing  declaimer  in  verse.  Besides  his 
plays,  Marston  published  two  volumes  of  poetry :  the  second,  by 
which  he  is  best  known,  a  collection  of  satires,  in  three  books,  enti- 
tled The  Scourge  of  Villainy,  a  set  of  very  vigorous  and  animated 
Juvenalian  chants.  Of  Robert  Tailor  nothing  is  known,  except 
ihat  he  is  the  author  of  one  play,  a  come(Jy,  entitled  The  Hog 
hath  Lost  his  Pearl,  which  was  acted  in  1613,  and  published  the 
following  year.  It  is  reprinted  in  Dodsley's  Collection,  and  Mr. 
Lamb  has  extracted  from  it  the  most  interesting  scenes,  which, 
lowever,  derive  their  interest  rather  fi"om  the  force  of  the  situatior 


598  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   A^D   LANGUAGE. 

(one  that  has  been  turned  to  better  account  in  other  hands)  than 
from  anything  very  impressive  in  its  treatment.  The  merit  of  a 
perspicuous  style  is  nearly  all  that  can  be  awarded  to  this  writer. 
Cyril  Tourneur  is  known  as  the  author  of  two  surviving  dramas,  — 
The  Revenger's  Tragedy,  and  The  x\theist's  Tragedy,  —  besides  a 
tragi-comedy,  called  The  Nobleman,  which  is  lost.^  The  Reven- 
ger's Tragedy,  in  particular,  which  is  reprinted  in  Dodsley's  Collec- 
tion, both  in  the  development  of  character  and  the  conduct  of  the 
action  evinces  a  rare  dramatic  skill,  and  the  dialogue  in  parts  is 
wonderfully  fine  —  natural  and  direct  as  that  of  real  passion,  yet 
ennobled  by  the  breathing  thoughts  and  burning  words  of  a  poetic 
imagination,  by  images  and  lines  that  plougli  into  the  memory 
and  the  heart. 

William  Rowley,  whose  cooperation  in  the  Witch  of  Edmonton 
with  Decker  and  Ford  has  been  already  noticed,  owes  the  oreater 
part  of  his  reputation  to  his  having  been  taken  into  partnership, 
in  the  composition  of  some  of  their  pieces,  by  Middleton,  Webster, 
Massinger,  and  other  writers  moi'e  eminent  than  himself;  but  he 
has  also  left  us  a  tragedy  and  three  comedies  of  his  own.  He  has 
his  share  of  the  cordial  and  straightforward  manner  of  our  old 
dramatists  ;  but  not  a  oiwat  deal  more  that  is  of  much  value.  Of 
the  style  of  his  comedy  a  judgment  may  be  formed  from  the  fact, 
recorded  by  Langbaine,  that  certain  of  the  scenes  of  one  of  his 
pieces,  A  Shoemaker  's  a  Gentleman,  used  to  be  commonly  per- 
formed by  the  strolling  actors  at  Bartholomew  and  Southwark 
fairs.  Though  he  appears  to  have  begun  to  write,  at  least  in  asso- 
ciation with  others,  some  ten  years  before  the  death  of  Shakspeare, 
Rowley  probably  survived  the  middle  of  the  century.  So  also, 
it  is  su})posed,  did  Thomas  Heywood,  the  most  ra])id  and  volumi- 
nous of  Englisli  writers,  who  appears  to  have  written  for  the  stage 
as  early  as  1596,  but  whose  last-published  piece,  written  in  con- 
junction with  Rowley,  was  not  printed  till  1655.^  Heywood, 
according  to  his  own  account,  in  an  Address  to  the  Reader  pre- 
fixed to  his  tragi-comedy  of  The  English  Traveller,  pubhshed  in 

J  Drake,  in  his  work  entitled  Shakespeare  and  his  Times  (vol.  ii.  p.  570),  speaks 
of  The  Nobleman  as  if  he  had  read  it  — telling  us  that  it,  as  well  as  Tourr.eur's 
two  tragedies,  contains  "  some  very  beautiful  passages  and  some  entire  scenes  of 
great  merit."  In  lact,  the  play  is  believed  never  to  have  been  printed;  but  a  manu- 
Bcript  copy  of  it  was  in  tlie  collection  of  Mr.  Warburton,  the  Somerset  herald,  whiclt 
WHS  destroyed  by  his  cook. 

2  See  Dodsley's  Old  Pla)s,  edit,  of  1826;  vii.  218  and  222. 


HEYWOOD.  59S 

1633,  had  then,  as  he  phrases  it,  "  had  either  an  entire  hand,  or, 
at  the  least,  a  main  finger,"  in  the  incredible  number  of  two  hun 
dred  and  twenty  dramatic  productions  I  "  True  it  is,"  he  adds, 
"  that  my  plays  are  not  exposed  unto  the  world  in  volumes,  to  beai 
the  title  of  Works,  as  others.  One  reason  is  that  many  oi'  them 
by  shifting  and  change  of  companies,  have  been  negligently  lost ; 
others  of  them  are  still  retained  in  the  hands  of  some  actors  who 
think  it  against  their  peculiar  profit  to  have  them  come  in  })rint , 
and  a  third,  that  it  never  was  any  great  ambition  in  me  to  be  in 
this  kind  voluminously  read."  Besides  his  plays,  too,  Heyvvood, 
"who  was  an  actor,  and  engaged  in  the  practice  of  his  profession 
for  a  great  part  of  his  life,  wrote  numerous  other  works,  several 
of  them  large  volumes  in  quarto  and  folio.  Among  them  are  a 
ti'anslation  of  Sallust ;  a  folio  volume  entitled  The  Hierarchy  of 
the  Blessed  Angels ;  a  General  History  of  Women ;  and  another 
w^ork  entitled  Nine  Books  of  Various  History  concerning  Women, 
a  folio  of  between  four  and  five  hundred  pages,  which,  in  a  Latin 
note  on  the  last  page,  he  tells  us  was  all  excogitated,  written,  and 
printed  in  seventeen  weeks.  Of  his  plays  above  twenty  are  still 
extant, — about  a  tithe  of  the  prodigious  litter.  Two  of  them,  his 
tragedy  of  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness,  and  liis  historical  play 
of  The  Four  'Prentices  of  London,  are  in  Dodsley ;  three  more, 
his  tragi-comedies  of  The  English  Traveller,  The  Royal  King  and 
Loyal  Subject,  and  A  Challenge  for  Beauty,  are  in  Dilke's  Collec- 
tion ;  and  about  a  dozen  others  have  been  reprinted  for  the  Shakes- 
peare Society.  Lamb  has  very  happily  characterized  Heywood  in 
a  few  words  :  "  Heywood  is  a  sort  of  prose  Shakspeare.  His  scenes 
are  to  the  full  as  natural  and  affecting.  But  we  miss  the  poet,  that 
which  in  Shakspeare  always  appears  out  and  above  the  surface  of 
the  nature^  His  plays,  however,  are  for  the  greater  part  hi  verse, 
which  at  least  has  ease  of  flow  enough ;  and  he  may  be  styled  not 
only  a  prose  Shakspeare,  but  a  more  poetical  Richardson.  If  he 
has  not  quite  the  power  of  Lillo  in  what  has  been  called  the  domes- 
tic tragedy,  which  is  the  species  to  which  his  best  pieces  belong, 
he  excels  that  modern  dramatist  both  in  facility  and  variety.^ 

1  Mr.  Hallam  (Introd.  to  Lit.  of  Eur.  iii.  845)  states  that  between  forty  and  fifty 
plays  are  ascribed  to  Heywood ;  in  fact,  only  twenty-six  existing  plays  have  been 
ascribed  to  him,  and  on]y  twenty-three  can  be  decisively  said  to  be  his  (see  Dodsley, 
edit,  of  1826,  vii.  218,  et  seq.).  Mr.  Hallam  is  also  not  quite  correct  in  elsewhere 
statinji  (ii.  275)  that  Heywood's  play  of  A  Woman  Killed  with  Kindness  bears  the 
ilate  of  1600,  and  in  speaking  of  it  as  certainly  his  earliest  production.    Tjie  earliesi 


600  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND  LANGUAGE. 


BEAUMONT  AND   FLETCHER. 

But  the  names  of  the  dramatic  Avriters  of  the  present  period 
that  hold  rank  the  nearest  to  Shakspeare  still  remain  to  be  men- 
tioned. Those  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  must  be  regarded  as 
indicating  one  poet  rather  than  two,  for  it  is  impossible  to  make 
anything  of  the  contradictory  accounts  that  have  been  handed 
down  as  to  their  respective  shares  in  the  plays  published  in  their 
conjoint  names,  and  the  plays  themselves  furnish  no  evidence  that 
is  more  decisive.  The  only  ascertained  facts  relating  to  this  point 
are  the  following:  —  that  John  Fletcher  was  about  ten  years  older 
than  his  friend  Francis  Beaumont,  the  former  having  been  born  in 
1576,  the  latter  in  1585  ;  that  Beaumont,  however,  so  far  as  is 
known,  came  first  before  the  world  as  a  writer  of  poetry,  his  trans- 
lation of  the  story  of  Salmacis  and  Hermaphroditus,  from  the  Fourth 
Book  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  having  been  published  in  1602, 
when  he  was  only  in  his  seventeenth  year;  that  the  Masque  of 
the  Inner  Temple  and  Gray's  Inn  (consisting  of  only  a  few  pages), 
produced  in  1612,  was  written  by  Beaumont  alone  ;  that  the  pas- 
toral drama  of  the  Faithful  Shepherdess  is  entirely  Fletcher's  ; 
that  the  first  published  of  the  pieces  which  have  been  ascribed  to 
the  two  associated  together,  the  comedy  of  The  Woman-Hater, 
appeared  in  1607  ;  that  Beaumont  died  in  March  1616  ;  and  that, 
between  that  date  and  the  death  of  Fletcher,  in  1625,  there  were 
brought  out,  as  appears  from  the  note-book  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert, 
Deputy  Master  of  the  Revels,  at  least  eleven  of  the  plays  found 
ir-  the  collection  of  their  works,  besides  two  others  that  were 
brought  out  in  1626,  and  two  more  that  are  lost.  Deducting  the 
fourteen  pieces  which  thus  appear  certainly  to  belong  to  Fletcher 
exclusively  (except  that  in  one  of  them.  The  Maid  in  the  Mill,  he 
is  said  to  have  been  assisted  by  RoAvley),  there  still  remain  thirty- 
seven  or  thirty-eight  Avhich  it  is  possible  they  may  have  written 
together  in  the  nine  or  ten  years  over  which  their  poetical  partner- 
ship is  supposed  to  have  extended.^     Eighteen  of  Beaumont  and 

kncwn  eilition,  which  is  called  the  third,  is  dated  1617  ;  and  the  earliest  notice  of 
Mk;  play  being  acted  is  in  1603.  Two  otlier  plays,  the  First  and  Second  Parts  of 
Th€  i>eath  of  Robert  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  otherwise  called  Robin  Hood,  which 
have  been  ascribed  to  Heywood,  were  published  in  1601.  But  there  is  some  loubl 
*8  to  his  claim  to  tliese  pieces. 
1  One,  the  comedy  of  The  Coronation,  is  also  attributed  to  Shirley. 


BEAUMONT   AND   FLETCHER.  601 

Fletcher's  plays,  including  the  Masque  by  the  former  and  the  Pas- 
toral by  the  latter,  were  published  separately  before  1640 ;  thirty- 
four  more  were  first  published  together  in  a  folio  volume  in  1647  ; 
and  the  whole  were  reprinted,  with  the  addition  of  a  comedy, 
supposed  to  have  been  lost  (The  Wild  Goose  Chase), ^  making  a 
collection  of  fifty-three  pieces  in  all,  in  another  folio,  in  1679. 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  want  altogether  that  ivhite  heat  of  passion 
by  which  Shakspeare  fuses  all  things  into  life  and  poetry  at  a  touch, 
often  making  a  single  brief  utterance  flash  upon  us  a  full  though 
momentary  view  of  a  character,  which  all  that  follows  deepens  and 
fixes,  and  makes  the  more  like  to  actual  seeing  with  the  eyes  and 
hearing  with  the  ears.  His  was  a  deeper,  higher,  in  every  way 
more  extended  and  capacious  nature  than  theirs.  They  want  his 
profound  meditative  philosophy  as  much  as  they  do  his  burning 
poetry.  Neither  have  they  avoided  nearly  to  the  same  degree  that 
he  has  done  the  degradation  of  their  fine  gold  by  the  intermixture 
of  baser  metal.  They  have  given  us  all  sorts  of  writing,  good, 
bad,  and  indifferent,  in  abundance.  Without  referring  in  particu- 
lar to  what  we  now  deem  the  indecency  and  licentiousness  Avhich 
pollutes  all  their  plays,  but  which,  strange  to  say,  seems  not  to  have 
been  looked  upon  in  that  light  by  anybody  in  their  own  age,  simply 
because  it  is  usually  wrapped  in  very  transparent  double  entendre^ 
they  might,  if  judged  by  nearly  one  half  of  all  they  have  left  us, 
be  held  to  belong  to  almost  the  lowest  rank  of  our  dramatists 
instead  of  to  the  highest.  There  is  scarcely  one  of  their  dramas 
that  does  not  bear  marks  of  haste  and  carelessness,  or  of  a  blight 
in  some  part  or  other  from  the  playhouse  tastes  or  compliances  to 
which  they  were  wont  too  easily  to  give  themselves  up  when  the 
louder  applause  of  the  day  and  the  tov/n  made  them  thoughtless 
of  their  truer  fame.  But  fortunately,  on  the  other  hand,  in  scarcely 
any  of  their  pieces  is  the  deformity  thus  occasioned  more  than 
partial :  the  circumstances  in  which  they  wrote  have  somewhat 
debased  the  produce  of  their  fine  genius,  but  their  genius  itself 
suffered  nothing  from  the  unworthy  uses  it  was  often  put  to.  It 
springs  up  again  from  the  dust  and  mud,  as  gay  a  creature  of  the 
element  as  ever,  soaring  and  singing  at  heaven's  gate  as  if  it  had 
never  touched  the  ground.     Nothing  can  go  beyond  the  flow  and 

1  This  play,  one  of  the  best  of  Fletcher's  comedies,  for  it  was  not  produced  till 
some  years  after  Beaumont's  death,  had  been  previously  recovered  and  printed  by 
Itself  in  1652, 

VOL.  I.  76 


602  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

brilliancy  of  the  dialogue  of  these  writers  in  their  happier  scenes 
it  is  the  richest  stream  of  real  conversation,  edged  with  the  fire  of 
poetry.  For  the  drama  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  is  as  essentially 
})oeticaI  and  imaginative,  though  not  in  so  high  a  style,  as  that  of 
Shakspeare  ;  and  they,  too,  even  if  they  were  not  great  dramatists, 
would  still  be  great  poets.  Much  of  their  verse  is  among  the 
sweetest  in  the  language  ;  and  many  of  the  lyrical  passages,  in 
particular,  with  which  their  plays  are  interspersed,  have  a  diviner 
soul  of  song  in  them  than  almost  any  other  compositions  of  the 
same  class.  As  di'amatists  they  are  far  inferior  to  Shakspeare,  not 
only,  as  we  have  said,  in  striking  development  and  consistent 
preservation  of  character,  —  in  other  words,  in  truth  and  force  of 
conception,  —  but  also  both  in  the  originality  and  the  variety  of 
their  creations  in  that  department ;  they  have  confined  themselves 
to  a  comparatively  small  number  of  broadly  distinguished  figures, 
which  they  delineate  in  a  dashing,  scene-painting  fashion,  bringing 
out  their  peculiarities  rather  by  force  of  situation,  and  contrast 
with  one  another,  than  by  the  form  and  aspect  Avith  which  each 
individually  looks  forth  and  emerges  from  the  canvas.  But  all  the 
resoui'ces  of  this  inferior  style  of  art  they  avail  themselves  of  with 
the  boldness  of  conscious  power,  and  with  wonderful  skill  and  effect. 
Their  invention  of  plot  and  incident  is  fertile  in  the  highest  de- 
gree ;  and  in  the  conduct  of  a  story  for  the  mere  purposes  of  the 
stage,  —  for  keeping  the  attention  of  an  audience  av/ake  and  their 
expectation  suspended  througliout  the  whole  course  of  the  action,  — 
they  excel  Shakspeare,  who,  aiming  at  higher  things,  and  producing 
his  more  glowing  pictures  by  fewer  strokes,  is  careless  about  the 
mere  excitement  of  curiosity,  whereas  they  are  tempted  to  linger 
as  long  as  possible  over  every  scene,  both  for  that  end,  and  because 
their  proper  method  of  evolving  character  and  passion  is  by  such 
delay  and  repetition  of  touch  upon  touch.  By  reason  principally 
of  this  difference,  the  plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  in  the  great 
days  of  the  stage,  and  so  long  as  the  state  of  public  mannei's  toler- 
ated their  license  and  grossness,  were  much  greater  favorites  than 
those  of  Shakspeare  in  our  theatres  ;  two  of  theirs,  Dryden  tells 
us,  were  acted  in  his  time  for  one  of  Shakspeare's ;  their  intrigues, 
—  their  lively  and  florid  but  not  subtle  dialogue,  —  their  strongly- 
marked  but  somewhat  exaggerated  representations  of  character, — 
their  exhibitions  of  passion,  apt  to  run  a  little  into  the  melo-dra- 
matic,  —  were  more  level  to  the  general  apprehension,  and  were 


JONSON.  60S 

found  to  be  more  entertaining,  than  his  higher  art  and  grandej 
poetry.  Beanmont  and  Fletcher,  as  might  be  inferred  from  what 
has  ah'eady  been  said,  are,  upon  the  wliole,  greater  in  comedy  than 
in  tragedy  ;  and  they  seem  themselves  to  have  felt  that  their  geniua 
led  them  more  to  the  former,  —  for,  of  their  plays,  only  ten  are 
tragedies,  while  their  comedies  amount  to  twenty-four  or  twenty- 
live,  the  rest  being  what  were  then  called  tragi-comedies  —  in 
many  of  which,  however,  it  is  true,  the  interest  is,  in  ])art  at  least, 
of  a  tragic  character,  although  the  story  ends  happily.^  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  all  their  tragedies  have  also  some  comic  passages ; 
and,  in  regard  to  this  matter,  indeed,  their  plays  may  be  generally 
described  as  consisting,  in  the  words  of  the  prologue  to  one  of 
them,^  of 

"  Passionate  scenes  mixed  with  no  vulgar  mirth." 

Undoubtedly,  taking  them  all  in  all,  they  have  left  us  the  richest 
and  most  magnificent  drama  we  possess  after  that  of  Shakspeare  ; 
the  most  instinct  and  alive  both  with  the  true  dramatic  spirit  and 
with  that  of  general  poetic  beauty  and  power ;  the  most  brilliantly 
lighted  up  with  wit  and  humor  ;  the  freshest  and  most  vivid,  as 
well  as  various,  picture  of  human  manners  and  passions  ;  the  trnest 
mirror,  and  at  the  same  time  the  finest  embellishment,  of  nature. 


JONSON. 


Ben  Jonson  was  born  in  1574,  or  two  years  before  Fletcher, 
whom  he  survived  twelve  years,  dying  in  1637.  He  is  supposed 
to  have  begun  to  wi'ite  for  the  stage  so  early  as  1593  ;  but  nothing 
that  he  produced  attracted  any  attention  till  his  Comedy  of  Every 
Man  in  his  Humour  was  brought  out  at  the  Rose  Theatre  in  1596. 
This  play,  greatly  altered  and  improved,  was  published  in  1598  ; 

1  The  following  definition  of  what  was  formerly  understood  by  the  term  tragi- 
comedy, or  tragic-comedy,  is  given  by  Fletcher  in  the  preface  to  his  Faithful  Shep- 
herdess :  —  "A  iragic-comedy  is  not  so  called  in  respect  of  mirth  and  killing,  but 
in  respect  it  wants  deaths  (which  is  enough  to  make  it  no  tragedy)  :  yet  brings 
some  near  to  it  (which  is  enough  to  make  it  no  comedy)  :  which  [riz.  tragic-comedy] 
must  be  a  representation  of  familiar  people,  with  such  kind  of  trouble  as  no  life  can 
be  without ;  so  that  a  god  is  as  lawful  in  this  as  in  a  tragedy  ;  and  mean  people  as 
in  a  comedy." 

2  The  Custom  of  the  Country. 


604  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

and  between  that  date  and  his  death  Jonson  produced  above  fiftji 
more  dramatic  pieces  in  all,  of  which  ten  are  comedies,  three  what 
lie  called  comical  satires,  only  two  tragedies,  and  all  the  rest 
masques,  pageants,  or  other  court  entertainments.  His  two  trage- 
dies of  Sejanus  and  Catiline  are  admitted  on  all  hands  to  be  nearly 
worthless  ;  and  his  fame  rests  almost  entirely  upon  his  first  comedy, 
his  three  subsequent  comedies  of  Volpone  or  The  Fox,  Epicoene  or 
The  Silent  Woman,  and  The  Alchemist,  his  covirt  Masques,  and  a 
Pastoral  entitled  The  Sad  Shepherd,  which  was  left  unfinished  at 
his  death.  Ben  Jonson's  comedies  admit  of  no  comparison  with 
those  of  Shakspeare  or  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  :  he  belongs 
to  another  school.  His  plays  are  professed  attempts  to  revive,  in 
English,  the  old  classic  Roman  drama,  and  aim  in  their  construc- 
tion at  a  rigorous  adherence  to  the  models  afforded  by  those  of 
Plautus,  and  Terence,  and  Seneca.  They  are  admirable  for  their 
elaborate  art,  which  is,  moreover,  informed  by  a  power  of  strong 
conception  of  a  decidedly  original  character ;  they  abound  both  in 
wit  and  eloquence,  which  in  some  passages  rises  to  the  glow  of 
poetry  ;  the  figures  of  the  scene  stand  out  in  high  relief,  every  one 
of  them,  from  the  most  important  to  the  most  insignificant,  being 
finished  off  at  all  points  with  the  minutest  care  ;  the  dialogue  car- 
ries on  the  action,  and  is  animated  in  many  parts  vnth  the  right 
dramatic  reciprocation  ;  and  the  plot  is  in  general  contrived  and 
evolved  with  the  same  learned  skill,  and  the  same  attention  to 
details,  that  are  shown  in  all  other  particulars.  But  the  execution, 
even  where  it  is  most  brilliant,  is  hard  and  angular  ;  nothing  seems 
to  flow  naturally  and  freely ;  the  whole  has  an  air  of  constraint, 
and  effort,  and  exaggeration  ;  and  the  effect  that  is  produced  by  the 
most  arresting  passages  is  the  most  undramatic  that  can  be,  — 
namely,  a  greater  sympathy  with  the  performance  as  a  work  of  art 
than  as  anything  else.  It  may  be  added  that  Jonson's  characters, 
though  vigorously  delineated,  and  though  not  perhaps  absolutely 
false  to  nature,  are  most  of  them  rather  of  the  class  of  her  occa- 
sional excrescences  or  eccentricities  than  samples  of  any  general 
humanity ;  they  are  the  oddities  and  perversions  of  a  particular 
age  or  state  of  manners,  and  have  no  universal  truth  or  interest. 
What  is  called  the  humor  of  Jonson  consists  entirely  in  the  exhi- 
bition of  the  more  ludicrous  kinds  of  these  morbid  aberrations  ; 
like  everything  about  him,  it  has  force  and  raciness  enoiigh,  but 
will  be  most  relished  by  those  mIio  are  most  amused  by  dancing- 


JONSON.     MAaslNGER.  605 

bears  and  other  shows  of  that  class.  It  seldom  or  never  makea 
the  heart  laugh,  like  the  humor  of  Shakspeare,  — which  is,  indeed, 
a  quality  of  altogether  another  essence.  As  a  poet,  Jonson  is 
greatest  in  his  masques  and  other  court  pageants.  The  airy  ele- 
gance of  these  compositions  is  a  perfect  contrast  to  the  stern  and 
rugged  strength  of  his  other  works  ;  the  lyrical  parts  of  them 
especially  have  often  a  grace  and  sportiveness,  a  flow  as  well  as  a 
finish,  the  effect  of  which  is  very  brilliant.  Still,  even  in  these, 
we  want  the  dewy  light  and  rich  colored  irradiation  of  the  poetry 
of  Shakspeare  and  Fletcher :  the  lustre  is  pure  and  bright,  but  at 
the  same  time  cold  and  sharp,  like  that  of  crystal.  In  Jonson's 
unfinished  pastoral  of  The  Sad  Shepherd  there  is  some  picturesque 
description  and  more  very  harmonious  verse,  and  the  lest  parts  of 
it  (much  of  it  is  poor  enough)  are  perhaps  in  a  higher  style  than 
anything  else  he  has  written  ;  but  to  compare  it,  as  has  sometimes 
been  done,  either  as  a  poem  or  as  a  drama,  with  The  Faithful 
Shepherdess  of  Fletcher  seems  to  us  to  evince  a  deficiency  of  true 
feeling  for  the  highest  things,  equal  to  what  would  be  shown  by 
preferring,  as  has  also  been  done  by  some  critics,  the  humor  of 
Jonson  to  that  of  Shakspeare.  Fletcher's  pastoral,  blasted  as  it 
is  in  some  parts  by  fire  not  from  heaven,  is  still  a  green  and  leafy 
wilderness  of  poetical  beauty  ;  Jonson's,  deformed  also  by  some 
brutality  more  elaborate  than  anything  of  the  same  sort  in  Fletcher, 
is  at  the  best  but  a  trim  garden,  and,  had  it  been  ever  so  happily 
finished,  would  have  been  nothing  more. 


MASSINGER.     FORD. 

After  Shakspeare,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  Jonson,  the 
next  great  name  in  our  drama  is  that  of  Philip  Massinger,  who  was 
born  in  1584,  and  is  supposed  to  have  begun  to  write  for  the  stage 
soon  after  1606,  although  his  first  published  play,  his  tragedy  of 
The  Virgin  Martyr,  in  which  he  was  assisted  by  Decker,  did  not 
appear  till  1622.  Of  thirty-eight  dramatic  pieces  which  he  is  said 
to  have  written,  only  eighteen  have  been  preserved ;  eight  others 
were  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Warburton,  which  his  servant 
destroyed.     Massinger,  like  Jonson,  had  received  a  learned  educa- 


606  EXGLTSIl   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

tion,  and  liis  classic  reading  has  colored  his  style  and  manner  ;  but 
he  had  scarcely  so  much  originality  of  genius  as  Jonson.  He  is  a 
very  eloquent  writer,  but  has  little  power  of  high  imagination  or 
pathos,  and  still  less  wit  or  comic  power.  He  could  rise,  however, 
to  a  vivid  conception  of  a  chai'acter  moved  by  some  single  aim  oi 
passion  ;  and  he  has  drawn  some  of  the  darker  shades  of  villany 
with  great  force.  His  Sir  Giles  Overreach,  in  A  New  Way  to  Pay 
Old  Debts,  and  his  Luke  in  the  City  Madam,  are  perliaps  his  most 
successful  delineations  in  this  style.  In  the  conduct  of  his  plots, 
also,  he  generally  displays  much  skill.  In  short,  all  that  can  be 
reached  by  mere  talent  and  warmth  of  susceptibility  he  has 
achieved  ;  but  his  province  was  to  appropriate  and  decorate  rather 
than  to  create. 

John  Ford,  the  author  of  about  a  dozen  plays  that  have  survived, 
and  one  of  whose  pieces  is  known  to  have  been  acted  so  early  as 
1613,  has  one  quality,  that  of  a  deep  pathos,  perhaps  more  nearly 
allied  to  high  genius  than  any  Massinger  has  shown  ;  but  the  range 
of  the  latter  in  the  delineation  of  action  and  passion  is  so  much 
more  extensive,  that  we  can  hardly  refuse  to  regard  him  as  the 
greater  dramatist.  Ford's  blank  verse  is  not  so  imposing  as  Mas- 
singer's  ;  but  it  has  often  a  delicate  beauty,  sometimes  a  warbling 
wildness  and  richness,  beyond  anything  in  Massinger's  fuller  swell. 


LATER   ELIZABETHAN   PROSE  WRITERS. 

Even  the  prose  literature  of  the  present  period  is  much  of  it  of 
so  imaginative  a  character,  that  it  may  be  considered  to  be  a  kind 
of  half-poetry.  We  have  already  traced  the  change  Avhich  Englisli 
prose-writing  underwent  in  the  course  of  the  second  and  third 
quarters  of  the  sixteenth  century,  passing  fi-om  the  familiar  but 
elegant  sim])licity  of  the  style  of  Sir  Thomas  More  to  the  more 
formal  and  elaborate  but  still  succinct  and  unincumbered  rhetoric 
of  Ascham,  from  thence  to  the  affectations  of  Lyly  the  Euphuist 
and  his  imitators,  and  finally  out  of  Avhat  we  may  call  that  sickly 
and  unnatural  state  of  transition  to  the  richly  decorated  eloquence 
of  Sidney.  Along  with  Sidney's  famous  work,  though  of  some- 
what later  date,  may  be  mentioned  his  friend  Spenser's  A'icw  of 


TRANSLATION    OF   THE   BIBLE.  607 

the  State  of  Ireland,  written,  as  has  been  ah'eady  intimated,  proh 
ably  in  the  year  1596.  It  is  a  composition  worthy  of  the  many- 
visioned  poet  —  full  of  matter,  full  of  thought,  full  of  life,  with 
passages  of  description  in  it  that  make  present  the  distant  and  the 
past,  like  the  painter's  colors.  The  stjde  has  not  so  much  that  is 
outwardly  imposing  as  Sidney's,  but  more  inward  vigor  and  ear- 
nestness, as  well  as  more  compactness  and  sinew  ;  in  short,  more 
of  the  true  glow  of  eloquence,  more  of  a  heart  leaping  within  it, 
and  sending  a  pulse  through  every  word  and  cadence. 

On  the  whole,  by  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  our  prose, 
as  exhibited  in  its  highest  examples,  if  it  had  lost  something  in  ease 
and  clearness,  had  gained  considerably  in  copiousness,  in  sonorous- 
ness, and  in  splendor.  In  its  inferior  specimens,  also,  a  correspond- 
ing change  is  to  be  traced,  but  of  a  modified  character.  In  these 
the  ancient  simplicity  and  directness  had  given  place  only  to  a  long- 
winded  wordiness,  and  an  awkwardness  and  intricacy,  sometimes 
so  excessive  as  to  be  nearly  unintelligible,  produced  by  })iling  clause 
upon  clause,  and  involution  upon  involution,  in  the  endeavor  to 
crowd  into  every  sentence  as  much  meaning  or  as  many  particu- 
lars as  possible.  Here  the  change  was  nearly  altogether  for  the 
worse ;  the  loss  in  one  direction  was  compensated  by  hardly  any- 
thin<i[  that  could  be  called  a  gain  in  another.  It  ouo;ht  also  to  be 
noticed  that  towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  a  singu- 
larly artificial  mode  of  composition  became  fashionable,  more  espe- 
cially in  sermons  and  other  theological  writings,  consisting  mainly 
in  the  remotest  or  most  recondite  analogies  of  thouglit  and  the 
most  elaborate  verbal  ingenuities  or  conceits.  This  may  be  desig- 
nated the  opposite  pole  in  popular  preaching  to  what  we  have  in 
ths  plainness  and  simplicity,  natural  sometimes  even  to  buffoonery, 
of  Latimer. 


TRANSLATION  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

The  ■  authorized  translation  of  the  Bible,  on  the  whole  so  admi- 
rable both  for  correctness  and  f^eaury  of  style,  is  apt,  on  the  first 
thought,  to  be  regarded  as  exhibiting  the  actual  state  of  the  lan- 
guage in  the  time  of  James  I.,  when  it  was  first  published.  It  is 
to  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  new  translation  was  formed, 


608  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

by  the  special  directions  of  the  king,  upon  the  basis  of  thai  of 
Parker's,  or  the  Bishops'  Bible,  which  had  been  made  nearly  forty 
years  before,  and  which  had  itself  been  founded  upon  that  of  Cran- 
mer,  made  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  The  consequence  is,  as 
Mr.  Hallam  has  remarked,  that,  whether  the  style  of  King  James's 
translation  be  the  perfection  of  the  English  language  or  no,  it  is 
not  the  language  of  his  reign.  "  It  may,  in  the  eyes  of  many," 
adds  Mr.  Hallam,  "  be  a  better  English,  but  it  is  not  the  Eno-lish 
of  Daniel,  or  Raleigh,  or  Bacon,  as  any  one  may  easily  perceive. 
It  abounds,  in  fact,  especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  with  obsolete 
phraseology,  and  with  single  words  long  since  abandoned,  or  re- 
tained only  in  provincial  use." -^  This  is,  perhaps,  rather  strongly 
put ;  for  although  the  preceding  version  served  as  a  general  guide 
to  the  translators,  and  was  not  needlessly  deviated  from,  they  have 
evidently  modernized  its  style,  not  perhaps  quite  up  to  that  of  their 
own  day,  but  so  far,  we  apprehend,  as  to  exclude  nearly  all  words 
and  phrases  that  had  then  passed  out  even  of  common  and  familiar 
use.  In  that  theological  age,  indeed,  few  forms  of  expression 
found  in  the  Bible  could  well  have  fallen  altogether  into  desuetude, 
although  some  may  have  come  to  be  less  apt  and  significant  than 
they  once  were,  or  than  others  that  might  now  be  substituted  for 
them.  But  we  believe  the  new  translators,  in  any  changes  they 
made,  were  very  careful  to  avoid  the  employment  of  any  mere 
words  of  yesterday,  the  glare  of  whose  recent  coinage  Avould  have 
contrasted  offensively  with  the  general  antique  color  of  diction 
which  they  desired  to  retain.  If  ever  their  version  were  to  be 
revised,  whether  to  improve  the  rendering  of  some  passages  by 
the  lights  of  modern  criticism,  or  to  mend  some  hardness  and  in- 
tricacy of  construction  in  others,  it  ought  to  be  retouched  in  the 
same  spirit  of  affectionate  veneration  for  the  genius  and  essential 
characteristics  of  its  beautiful  diction  ;  and  a  good  rule  to  be  laid 
down  might  be,  that  no  word  should  be  admitted  in  the  improved 
renderings  which  was  not  in  use  in  the  age  when  the  translation 
was  originally  made.  The  language  was  then  abundantly  rich 
enough  to  furnish  all  the  words  that  could  be  wanted  for  the  pur 
pose. 

1  Lit.  of  Eur.  ii.  464. 


THEOLOGICAL    WRITF^RS. —  JAMES   L     BISHOP   ANDREWS. 
DONNE.     HALL.     HOOKER. 

Besides  the  translation  of  the  Bible,  the  portion  of  the  English 
literature  of  the  present  period  that  is  theological  is  very  great 
in  point  of  quantity,  and  a  part  of  it  also  possesses  distinguished 
claims  to  notice  in  a  literary  point  of  view.  Religion  was  the  great 
subject  of  speculation  and  controversy  in  this  country  throughout 
the  entire  space  of  a  century  and  a  half  between  the  Reformation 
and  the  Revolution  ;  and  nothino;  can  more  strikino;lv  illustrate  the 
universality  of  the  interest  that  was  now  taken  in  theological  con- 
troversy, than  the  fact  that  both  the  kings  whose  reigns  fill  the 
first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  have  left  us  a  considerable 
quantity  of  literary  manufacture  of  their  own,  and  that  it  is  almost 
all  theological.  The  writings  of  Charles  I.  will  be  noticed  after- 
wards. King  James,  whose  works  were  collected  and  published 
in  a  folio  volume  in  1616,  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Mountague,  bishop 
of  Winchester,  had  given  to  the  world  what  he  called  a  Fruitful 
Meditation  upon  part  of  the  Apocalypse,  "  in  form  of  ane  sermon," 
so  early  as  the  year  1588,  when  he  was  only  a  youth  of  two-and- 
twenty.  Indeed,  according  to  Bishop  Mountague's  account,  this 
performance  was  "  written  by  his  majesty  before  he  was  twenty 
years  of  age."  Soon  after,  on  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
Armada,  he  produced  another  Meditation  on  certain  verses  of  one 
of  the  chapters  of  the  First  Book  of  Chronicles,  Among  his  sub- 
sequent publications  are  Meditations  on  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  on 
some  verses  of  the  27th  chapter  of  St.  Matthew.  And  nearly  all 
his  other  works  —  his  Dgemonologie,  first  published  in  1597;  his 
True  Law  of  Free  Monarchies,  1598  ;  his  Basilicon  Doron,  or  ad- 
vice to  his  son  Prince  Henry,  1599 ;  his  Apology  for  the  Oath  of 
Allegiance,  1605  —  are,  in  the  main,  theological  treatises.  It  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  add  that  they  are  of  little  or  no  value,  either 
theological  or  literaiy ;  though  they  are  curious  as  illustrating  the 
intellectual  and  moral  character  of  James,  who  was  certainly  a 
person  of  no  depth  either  of  learning  or  of  judgment,  though  of 
some  reading  in  the  single  province  of  theology,  and  also  of  con- 
siderable shrewdness  and  readiness,  and  an  inexhaustible  flow  of 
words,  which  he  mistook  for  eloquence  and  genius. 

One  of  the  most  eminent  preachers,  perhaps  the  most  eminent, 
of  the   age  of  Elizabetli    and    Jaine-^>  was    \)\\    Lancelot  Andrt,  .rs, 


610  ENGLISH   LITERATURE    AND   LANGUAGE. 

who,  after  having  held  the  sees  of  Chichester  and  Ely,  died  bishop 
of  Winchester  in  1626.  Bishop  Andrews  was  one  of  the  trans- 
lators of  the  Bible,  and  is  the  author,  among  other  works,  of  a 
folio  Yolnme  of  Sermons  published,  by  direction  of  Charles  I.,  soon 
after  his  death ;  of  another  folio  volume  of  Tracts  and  Speeches, 
which  appeared  in  1629 ;  of  a  third  volume  of  Lectures  on  the 
Ten  Commandments,  published  in  1642  ;  and  of  a  fourth,  contain- 
ing Lectures  delivered  at  St.  Paul's  and  at  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate, 
published  in  1657.  He  was,  perhaps,  the  most  learned  of  the 
English  theologians  of  that  learned  time,  and  was  besides  a  person 
of  great  vigor  and  acuteness  of  understanding ;  so  that  his  death 
was  regarded  by  scholars  both  at  home  and  abroad  as  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  chief  light  of  the  English  Church.  INIilton,  then  a 
youth  of  seventeen,  bewailed  the  event  in  a  Latin  elegy,  flill  of 
feeling  and  fancy ;  and  even  in  a  tract  written  many  years  after- 
wards, when  his  opinions  had  undergone  a  complete  change,  he 
admits  that  "  Bishop  Andrews  of  late  years,  and  in  these  times  the 
Primate  of  Armagh  (Usher),  for  their  learning  are  reputed  the 
best  able  to  say  what  may  be  said "  in  defence  of  episcopacy.^ 
Both  the  learning  and  ability  of  Andrews,  indeed,  are  conspicuous 
in  everything  he  has  written  ;  but  his  eloquence,  nevertheless,  is 
to  a  modern  taste  grotesque  enough.  In  his  more  ambitious  pas- 
sages he  is  the  very  prince  of  verbal  posture-masters,  —  if  not  the 
first  in  date,  the  first  in  extravagance,  of  the  artificial,  quibbling, 
syllable-tormenting  school  of  our  English  pulpit  rhetoricians  ;  and 
he  undoubtedly  contributed  more  to  spread  the  disease  of  that 
manner  of  writing  than  any  other  individual.  Not  only  did  his 
eminence  in  this  line  endear  him  to  the  royal  tastes  of  Elizabeth 
and  James  ;  all  men  admired  and  strove  to  copy  after  him.  Fuller 
declares  that  he  was  "  an  inimitable  preacher  in  his  way  "  ;  and 
then  he  tells  ns  that  "  pious  and  pleasant  Bishop  Felton,  his  con- 
temporary and  colleague,  endeavoured  in  vain  in  his  sermons  to 
assimilate  his  style,  and  therefore  said  merrily  of  himself,  I  had 
almost  marred  my  own  natural  trot  by  endeavouring  to  imitate  his 
artificial  aml)le."  Many  a  "  natural  trot"  Andrews  no  doubt  was 
*he  cause  of  spoiling  in  his  day,  and  long  after  i':.  This  bishop  is 
further  very  notable,  in  the  history  of  the  English  Church,  as  the 
first  great  asserter  of  those  semi-popish  notions  touching  doctrines, 

'  The  Reason   of   Church   Government  argued   against  Prehicy  (published  in 
''641),  Book  i.  chap.  3. 


BISHOP   ANDREWS.     DONNE.  611 

rites,  and  ecclesiastical  government  with  which  Laud  afterwards 
blew  up  the  establishment.  Andrews,  however,  was  a  very  differ- 
ent sort  of  person  fi'om  Laud,  —  as  superior  to  him  in  sense  and 
policy  as  in  learning  and  general  strength  and  comprehensiveness 
of  understanding.  A  well-known  story  that  is  told  of  him  proves 
his  moderation  as  much  as  his  wit  and  readiness  :  when  he  and 
Dr.  Neal,  bishop  of  Durham,  were  one  day  standing  behind  the 
King's  chair  as  he  sat  at  dinner  (it  was  the  day  on  which  James 
dissolved  his  third  parliament,  and  the  anecdote  is  related  on  the 
authority  of  Waller,  the  poet,  who  M^as  present),  his  majesty,  turn- 
ing round,  addi'essed  the  two  prelates  —  My  loi'ds,  cannot  I  take 
my  subjects'  money  when  I  want  it,  without  all  this  formality  in 
parliament?  "The  bishop  of  Durham  readily  answered,  God 
forbid,  sir,  but  you  should ;  you  are  the  breath  of  our  nostrils. 
Whereupon  the  king  turned,  and  said  to  the  bishop  of  Winchester, 
Well,  my  lord,  what  say  you  ?  Sir,  replied  the  bishop,  I  have  no 
skill  to  judge  of  parliamentary  cases.  The  king  answered.  No 
put-offs,  my  lord,  answer  me  presently.  Then,  sir,  said  he,  I 
think  it  is  lawful  for  you  to  take  my  brother  Neal's  money,  for 
he  offers  it."  ^  Clarendon  has  expressed  his  belief  that  if  Arch- 
bishop Bancroft  had  been  succeeded  in  the  see  of  Canterbury  by 
Andrews,  instead  of  Abbot,  the  infection  of  the  Geneva  fire  would 
have  been  kept  out,  which  could  not  afterwards  be  so  easily 
expelled.^ 

Donne,  the  poet,  was  also  a  vokiminous  writer  in  prose  ;  having 
left  a  folio  volume  of  Sermons,  besides  a  treatise  agamst  Popery 
entitled  The  Pseudo-Martyr,  another  singular  performance,  entitled 
Biathanatos,  in  confutation  of  the  common  notion  about  the  neces- 
sary sinfulness  of  suicide,  and  some  other  professional  disquisitions. 
His  biographer,  Izaak  Walton,  says  that  he  preached  "  as  an  angel, 
from  a  cloud,  but  not  in  a  cloud  "  ;  but  most  modern  readers  will 
probably  be  of  opinion  that  he  has  not  quite  made  his  escape  fi'om 
it.  His  manner  is  fully  as  quaint  in  his  prose  as  in  hi.s  verse,  and 
his  way  of  thinking  as  subtle  and  peculiar.  His  sermons  are  also, 
as  well  as  those  of  Andrews,  overlaid  with  learning,  much  of 
which  seems  to  be  only  a  useless  and  cumbersome  show.  Doubt- 
less, however,  there  are  deep  and  beautiful  things  in  Donne,  for 
those  that  will  seek  for  them  ;  as  has,  indeed,  been   testified  by 

1  Life  of  Waller,  prefixed  to  his  Poems,  1712. 

2  Hist.  i.  88  (edit,  of  1717). 


612  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

pome  who  in  modern  times  have  made  themselves  the  best 
acquainted  with   these    long-neglected    theological  works   of   his.^ 

Another  of  the  most  learned  theologians  and  eloquent  preachers 
of  those  times  was  as  well  as  Donne  an  eminent  poet,  Bishop 
Joseph  Hall.  Hall's  English  prose  works,  which  are  very  volu- 
minous, consist  of  sermons,  polemical  tracts,  paraphrases  of  Scrip- 
ture, casuistical  divinity,  and  some  pieces  on  practical  religion,  of 
which  his  Contemplations,  his  Art  of  Divine  Meditation,  and  his 
Enochismus,  or  Treatise  on  the  Mode  of  Walking  with  God,  are 
tlie  most  remarkable.  The  poetic  temperament  of  Hall  reveals 
itself,  in  his  prose  as  well  as  in  his  verse,  by  the  fervor  of  his 
])iety,  and  the  forcible  and  often  picturesque  character  of  his 
style,  in  Avhich  it  has  been  thought  he  made  Seneca  his  model. 
"  The  writer  of  the  Satires,"  observes  Warton,  "  is  perceptible  in 
some  of  his  gravest  polemical  or  Scriptural  treatises  ;  which  are 
perpetually  interspersed  with  excursive  illustrations,  familiar  allu- 
sions, and  observations  on  life.^  It  will  be  perceived,  from  all  this, 
that  both  in  style  and  in  mind  Hall  and  Donne  were  altogether 
opposed  ;  neither  in  his  prose  nor  in  his  verse  has  the  former  the 
originality  of  the  latter,  or  the  fineness  of  thought  that  M'ill  often 
break  out  in  a  sudden  streak  of  light  from  the  midst  of  his  dark 
savings  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  perfectly  free  from  the  dom- 
inant vices  of  Donne's  manner,  his  conceits,  his  quaintness,  his 
remote  and  flmtastic  analogies,  his  obscurity,  his  harshness,  his 
])arade  of  a  useless  and  encumbering  enidition. 

Last  of  all  may  be  mentioned,  among  the  great  theological 
writers  of  this  great  theological  time,  one  who  stands  alone,  Rich- 
ard Hooker,  the  illustrious  author  of  the  Eight  Books  of  the  Laws 
of  Ecclesiastical  Polity ;  of  which  the  first  four  were  published  in 
1594,  the  fifth  in  1597,  the  three  last  not  till  1632,  many  years 
after  the  author's  death.  Hooker's  style  is  almost  Avithout  a  rival 
for  its  sustained  dignity  of  march  ;  but  that  which  makes  it  most 
remarkable  is  its  union  of  all  this  learned  gravity  and  correctness 
with  a  flow  of  genuine,  racy  English,  almost  as  little  tinctured  with 
pedantry  as  the  most  familiar  popular  writing.      The  effect,  also, 

1  The  first  edition  of  the  collected  Works  of  Dr.  Donne  was  published  by  the 
Rev.  Henry  Alford,  M.  A.,  in  6  vols.  8vo.  in  183'.).  Three  folio  volumes  of  his 
Sermons,  however,  had    been  successively  published  in  1G40,  1649,  and  1G61. 

"  Hist.  Eng.  Poet.  iv.  836.  A  complete  collection  of  the  works'  of  Bishop  Hall, 
edited  by  the  Rev.  Peter  Hall,  was  brought  out  at  Oxford,  in  12  vols.  8vo.  in 
1887-39. 


BACON.  613 

of  its  evenness  of  movement  is  the  very  reverse  of  tameness  or 
languor ;  the  full  river  of  the  argument  dashes  over  no  precipices, 
but  yet  rolls  along  without  pause,  and  with  great  force  and 
buoyancy. 


BACON. 


Undoubtedly  the  principal  figure  in  English  prose  literature,  as 
well  as  in  philosophy,  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  is  Fi'ancis  Bacon.  Bacon,  born  in  1561,  published  the 
first  edition  of  his  Essays  in  1597  ;  his  Two  Books  of  the  Advance- 
ment of  Learning  in  1605  ;  his  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients  (in  Latin) 
in  1610  ;  a  third  edition  of  his  Essays,  greatly  extended,  in  1612 ; 
his  Two  Books  of  the  Novum  Organum,  or  Second  Part  of  the 
Instauratio  Magna,  designed  to  consist  of  Six  Parts  (also  in  Latin), 
in  1620  ;  his  History  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  VIL,  in  1622  ;  his 
Nine  Books  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum,  a  Latin  translation  and 
extension  of  his  Advancement  of  Learnino;,  in  1623.  He  died  in 
1626.  The  originality  of  the  Baconian  or  Inductive  method  of 
philosophy,  the  actual  service  it  has  rendered  to  science,  and  ever 
the  end  which  it  may  be  most  correctly  said  to  have  in  view,  have 
all  been  subjects  of  dispute  almost  ever  since  Bacon's  own  day ; 
'but,  notwithstanding  all  differences  of  opinion  upon  these  points, 
the  acknowledgment  that  he  was  intellectually  one  of  the  most 
colossal  of  the  sons  of  men  has  been  nearly  unanimous.  They 
who  have  not  seen  his  greatness  under  one  form  have  discovered  it 
in  another  ;  there  is  a  discordance  among  men's  ways  of  looking  at 
him,  or  their  theories  respecting  him  ;  but  the  mighty  shadow 
which  he  projects  athwart  the  two  bygone  centuries  lies  there 
immovable,  and  still  extending  as  time  extends.  The  very  deduc- 
tions which  are  made  from  his  merits  in  regard  to  particular  points 
thus  only  heighten  the  impression  of  his  general  eminence,  —  of 
that  something  about  him  not  fully  understood  or  discerned,  which, 
spite  of  all  curtailment  of  his  claims  in  regard  to  one  special  kind 
of  eminence  or  another,  still  leaves  the  sense  of  his  eminence  as 
strong  as  ever.  As  for  his  Novum  Organum,  or  so-called  new 
instrument  of  philosophy,  it  may  be  that  it  was  not  really  new 
'vhen  he  announced  it  as  such,  either  as  a  process  followed  in  the 


614  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

practice  of  scientific  discovery,  or  as  a  theory  of  the  'right  method 
of  discovery.  Neither  may  Bacon  have  been  the  first  writer,  in 
his  own  or  the  immediately  preceding  age,  who  recalled  attention 
to  the  inductive  method,  or  who  pointed  out  the  barrenness  of 
what  was  then  called  philosophy  in  the  schools.  Nor  can  it  be 
affirmed  that  it  was  really  he  who  brought  the  reign  of  that  phi- 
losophy to  a  close  :  it  was  falling  fast  into  disrepute  before  he 
assailed  it,  and  would  probably  have  passed  away  quite  as  soon  as 
it  did  although  his  writings  had  never  appeared.  Nor  possibly  has 
he  either  looked  at  that  old  philosophy  with  a  very  penetrating  or 
comprehensive  eye,  or  even  shown  a  perfect  understanding  of  the 
inductive  method  in  all  its  applications  and  principles.  As  for  his 
attempts  in  the  actual  practice  of  the  ind  ucti^^e  method,  they  were, 
it  must  be  owned,  either  insignificant  or  utter  failures  ;  and  that, 
too,  while  some  of  his  contemporaries,  who  in  no  respect  acknowl- 
edo-ed  him  as  their  teacher,  were  turnino;  it  to  account  in  extorting 
from  nature  the  most  brilliant  revelations.  Nay,  can  it  be  doubted 
that,  if  Bacon  had  never  lived,  or  never  written,  the  discoveries 
and  the  writings  of  Galileo,  and  Kepler,  and  Pascal,  and  others 
who  were  now  extending  the  empire  of  science  by  the  very  method 
which  he  has  explained  and  recommended,  but  most  assuredly 
without  having  been  instructed  in  that  method  by  him,  would  have 
established  the  universal  recognition  of  it  as  the  right  method  of 
philosophy  just  as  early  as  such  recognition  actually  took  place  ? 
That  Bacon's  Novum  Organum  has,  even  down  to  the  present  day, 
affected  in  any  material  degree  the  actual  progress  of  science,  may 
be  very  reasonably  questioned.  What  great  discovery  or  improve- 
ment can  be  named  among  all  those  that  have  been  made  since  his 
time,  which,  from  the  known  facts  of  its  history,  we  may  not  fairly 
presume  would  have  been  made  at  any  rate,  though  the  Novum 
Organum  had  never  been  written  ?  What  instance  can  be  quoted 
of  the  study  of  that  work  having  made,  or  even  greatly  contrib- 
uted to  make,  any  individual  a  discoverer  in  science  who  would 
not  in  all  probability  have  been  equally  such  if  he  had  never  seen 
or  heard  of  it  ?  In  point  of  fact,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
almost  any  of  those  by  whom  science  has  been  most  carried  for- 
ward since  it  appeared  had  either  much  studied  Bacon's  Novum 
Organum,  or  had  even  acquired  any  intimate  or  comprehensive 
acquaintance  with  the  rules  and  directions  therein  laid  down  from 
nther  sources.      Nor  is  it  likely  that  they  would  have  been  more 


BACON.  615 

successfol  experimenters  or  greater  discoverers  if  they  had.  For 
there  is  surely  nothing  in  any  part  of  the  method  of  procedure 
prescribed  by  Bac(m  for  tlie  investigation  of  truth,  that  wovild  not 
occur  of  itself  to  the  sagacity  and  common  sense  of  any  person  of 
an  inventive  genius  pursuing  such  investigation  ;  indeed,  every 
discovery  that  has  been  made,  except  by  accident,  since  science 
had  any  being,  must  have  been  arrived  at  by  the  very  processes 
which  he  has  explained.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  would 
be  found,  on  a  survey  of  the  whole  history  of  scientific  discovery, 
that  its  progress  has  always  depended  partly  upon  the  remarkable 
genius  of  individuals,  partly  upon  the  general  state  of  the  world 
and  the  condition  of  civilization  at  different  times,  and  not  in  any 
sensible  degree  upon  the  mere  speculative  views  as  to  the  right 
method  of  philosophy  that  have  at  particular  eras  been  taught  in 
schools  or  books,  or  otherwise  generally  diffused.  In  fact  it  is 
much  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  such  speculative  views 
should  have  been  usually  influenced  by  the  actual  progress  of  dis- 
covery than  it  by  them  ;  for  the  recognition  of  sound  principles  of 
procedure,  in  as  far  as  that  is  implied  in  their  practical  ap])lication, 
though  not  perhaps  the  contemplation  and  exposition  of  them  in  a 
systematic  form,  is  necessarily  involved,  as  has  been  just  observed, 
in  the  very  act  of  scientific  discovery.  All  this  being  considered, 
there  cannot  well  be  attributed  to  Bacon's  Novum  Organum  any 
considerable  direct  share,  nor  even  much  indirect  influence  in  pro- 
moting the  progress  which  science  has  made  in  certain  departments 
since  his  time  ;  it  is  most  probable  that  that  progress  is  to  be  traced 
to  other  causes  altogether,  and  that  it  would  have  been  pretty 
nearly  what  it  is  though  the  Noviim  Organum  never  had  been 
written.  Galileo,  and  not  Bacon,  is  the  true  father  of  modern 
natural  philosophy.  That,  in  truth,  was  not  Bacon's  province  at 
all ;  neither  his  acquirements  nor  the  peculiar  character  and  consti- 
tution of  his  mind  fitted  him  for  achieving  anything  on  that  ground. 
The  common  mistake  regarding  him  is  the  same  as  if  it  were  to  be 
said  that  not  Homer,  but  Aristotle,  was  the  father  of  poetry, 
because  he  first  investigated  and  explained  the  principles  or  philos- 
ophy of  a  part  of  the  art  of  poetry.  C Bacon  belongs  not  to  mathe- 
matical or  natural  science,  but  to  literature  and  to  moral  science  in 
its  most  extensive  acceptation, — to  the  realm  of  imagination,  of 
wit,  of  eloquence,  of  aesthetics,  of  history,  of  jurisprudence,  of 
political  philosophy,  of  logic,  of  metaphysics  and  the  investigation 


616  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 

of  the  powers  and  operations  of  the  human  mind.  He  is  eitliet 
not  at  all  or  in  no  degree  worth  mentioning  an  investigator  ot 
expounder  of  mathematics,  or  of  mechanics,  or  of  astronomy,  or 
of  chemistry,  or  of  any  other  branch  of  geometrical  or  physical 
science ;  but  he  is  a  most  penetrating  and  comprehensive  investi- 
gator, and  a  most  magnificent  expounder,  of  that  higher  Avisdom  in 
comparison  with  wliich  all  these  things  are  but  a  more  intellectual 
sort  of  legerdemain.  All  his  works,  his  essays,  his  philosophical 
writings,  commonly  so  called,  and  what  he  has  done  in  history,  are 
of  one  and  the  same  character ;  reflective  and,  so  to  speak,  poeti- 
cal, not  simply  demonstrative,  or  elucidatory  of  mere  matters  of 
fact.  What,  then,  is  his  glory  ?  —  in  what  did  his  greatness  con- 
sist ?  In  this,  we  should  say :  —  that  an  intellect  at  once  one  of 
the  most  capacious  and  one  of  the  most  profound  ever  granted  to  a 
mortal  —  in  its  powers  of  vision  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most 
penetrating  and  one  of  the  most  far-re  aching  —  was  in  him  united 
and  reconciled  with  an  almost  equal  endowment  of  the  imaginative 
faculty ;  and  that  he  is,  therefore,  of  all  philosophical  writers,  the 
one  in  whom  are  found  togetlier,  in  the  largest  proportions,  depth 
of  thought  and  splendor  of  eloquence.  His  intellectual  ambition, 
also,  —  a  quality  of  the  imagination,  —  was  of  the  most  towering 
character  ;  and  no  other  philosophic  writer  has  taken  up  so  grand 
a  theme  as  that  on  which  he  has  laid  out  his  streno-th  in  his  great- 
est  works.  But  with  the  progress  of  scientific  discovery  that  has 
taken  place  during  the  last  two  hundred  years,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  show  that  these  works  have  had  almost  anything  to  do.  His 
Advancement  of  Learning  and  his  Novum  Organum  have  more  in 
them  of  the  spirit  of  poetry  than  of  science  ;  and  we  should  almost 
as  soon  think  of  fathering  modern  physical  science  upon  Paradise 
J^ost  as  upon  them. 

A  late  distinguished  writer,  Mr.  Hallam  in  his  History  of  Euro- 
pean Literature,  altliough  his  estimate  of  what  Bacon  has  done 
for  science  is  much  higher  than  we  are  able  to  go  along  with,  yet 
in  the  following  passage  seems  to  come  very  near  to  the  admission 
of,  or  at  least  very  strongly  to  corroborate,  much  of  what  has  just 
been  advanced  :  —  "It  is  evident  that  he  had  turned  his  thoughts 
to  physical  ])]iilosophy  rather  for  an  exercise  of  his  reasoning  facul- 
ties, and  out  of  his  insatiable  thirst  for  knowledge,  than  from  any 
peculiar  aptitude  for  tlieir  [^these,  or  such  ?~\  subjects,  much  less  any 
advantage  of  o[)i)ortunity  for  their  cultivation.     He  was  more  emi- 


BACON.  617 

nently  the  philosoplier  of  human  than  of  general  nature.  Hence 
he  is  exact  as  well  as  profound  m  all  his  reflections  on  civil  life  and 
mankind ;  while  his  conjectures  in  natural  philosophy,  though  often 
very  acute,  are  apt  to  wander  far  from  the  truth  in  consequence  of 
his  defective  acquaintance  with  the  phenomena  of  nature.  His 
Centuries  of  Natural  History  give  abundant  proof  of  this.  He  is, 
in  all  these  inquiries,  like  one  doubtfully,  and  by  degrees,  making 
out  a  distant  prospect,  but  often  deceived  by  the  haze.  But  if  we 
compare  what  may  be  found  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  Books 
De  Augmentis,  in  the  Essays,  the  History  of  Henry  VH.,  and  the 
various  short  treatises  contained  in  his  works,  on  moral  and  politi- 
cal wisdom,  and  on  human  nature,  from  experience  of  which  all 
such  wisdom  is  drawn,  with  the  Rhetoric,  Ethics,  and  Politics  of 
Aristotle,  or  with  the  histoi'ians  most  celebrated  for  their  deep  in- 
sight into  civil  society  and  human  character,  —  with  Thucydides, 
Tacitus,  Philip  de  Comines,  Machiavel,  Davila,  Hume,  —  we  shall, 
1  think,  find  that  one  man  may  almost  be  compared  with  all  of 
these  together.  When  Galileo  is  named  as  equal  to  Bacon,  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  Galileo  was  no  moral  or  political  philoso- 
pher ;  and  in  this  department  Leibnitz  certainly  falls  very  short  of 
Bacon.  Burke,  perhaps,  comes,  of  all  modern  writers,  the  nearest 
to  him ;  but,  though  Bacon  may  not  be  more  profound  than  Burke, 
he  is  still  more  copious  and  comprehensive."  ^ 

1  Lit.  of  Eur.  iii.  61.  Among  many  other  admirable  things  thickly  scattered 
over  the  whole  of  this  .section  on  Bacon  (pp.  23-68),  Mr.  Hallam  has  taken  an  op- 
portunity of  pointing  out  an  almost  universal  misapprehension  into  which  the 
modern  expositors  of  Bacon's  Novum  Organum  have  fallen  on  the  siibjefct  of  his 
celebrated  Idola,  which,  as  is  here  shown,  are  not  at  all  what  we  now  call  idols, 
that  is,  false  divinities,  but  merely,  in  the  Greek  sense  of  the  word,  images  or  falla- 
cious ajjpearances  of  things  as  opposed  to  realities  (pp.  44-46).  The  reader  may 
also  be  referred  to  another  disquisition  on  Bacon,  of  great  brilliancy,  by  Mr.  Ma- 
caulay,  which  originally  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  (No.  132,  for  July,  1837, 
pp.  1-104).  And  in  addition  to  the  illustrative  expositions  of  the  Novum  Organum, 
of  a  more  scientific  character,  by  the  late  Professor  Playfair,  in  his  Dissertation  on 
the  Progress  of  Mathematical  and  Physical  Science,  prefixed  to  the  Encycloj)aedia 
Britannica  (pp.  453-474)  ;  and  by  Sir  John  Herschel,  in  his  Preliminary  Discourse 
on  the  Objects,  Advantages,  and  Pleasures  of  the  Study  of  Natural  Philosophy,  in 
Dr.  Lardner's  Cabinet  Cyclopaedia,  may  be  mentioned,  as  containing  some  views 
of  the  greatest  importance,  the  Second  Section  of  Coleridge's  Introduction  to  the 
Encyclopaedia  Metropolitana  (pp.  24-32),  partly  founded  on  what  had  been  previ- 
0USI3'  published  in  the  Friend.  Coleridge  is  one  of  the  very  few  modern  writers 
■who  have  not  fallen  into  the  misconception  noticed  above  about  Bacon's  Idola.  See 
his  treatise,  p.  28.  But  the  most  learned,  elaborate,  and  complete  examination  that 
Bacon's  philosophical  system  and  claims  have  received,  is  what  is  given  from  the 
papers  of  the  late  P.  L.  Ellis,  Esq.,  in  the  new  edition  of  his  works,  superintended 

VOL    I.  78 


618  ENGLISH   LITERATURE   AND   LANGUAGE. 


BURTON. 

A  REMARKABLE  prose  woi'lv  of  this  age,  which  ought  not  to  be 
passed  over  without  notice,  is  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. 
Robert  Burton,  who,  on  his  title-page,  takes  the  name  of  Democii- 
tus  Junior,  died  in  1640,  and  his  book  was  first  published  in  1621 
It  is  an  extraordinary  accumulation  of  out-of-the-way  learning, 
interspersed,  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  Montaigne's  Essays,  with 
orio-inal  matter,  but  with  this  among;  other  differences,  —  that  in 
Montaigne  the  quotations  have  the  air  of  being  introduced,  as  we 
know  that  in  fact  they  Avere,  to  illustrate  the  original  matter,  which 
is  the  web  of  the  discourse,  they  but  the  embroidery ;  whereas  in 
Burton  the  learning  is  rather  the  web,  upon  which  what  he  has 
got  to  say  of  his  own  is  worked  in  by  way  of  forming  a  sort  of 
decorative  figure.  Burton  is  far  from  having  the  vai'iety  or  abun- 
dance of  Montaigne  ;  but  there  is  considerable  point  and  penetra- 
tion in  his  style,  and  he  says  many  striking  things  in  a  sort  of  half- 
splenetic,  half-jocular  humor,  which  many  readers  have  found 
wondei*fully  stimulating.  Dr.  Johnson  declared  that  Burton's 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy  was  the  only  book  that  ever  drew  him 
out  of  bed  an  hour  sooner  than  he  would  otherwise  have  got  up. 


HISTORICAL   WRITERS. 

Among  the  historical  writers  of  the  reign  of  James  may  be  first 
mentioned  the  all-accomplished  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  Raleigh  is 
the  author  of  a  few  short  poems,  and  of  some  miscellaneous  pieces 
in  prose  ;  but  his  great  work  is  his  History  of  the  World,  composed 
during  his  imprisonment  in  the  Tower,  and  first  published  in  a  folio 
volume  in  1614.  It  is  an  unfinished  work,  coming  dowTi  only  to 
the  first  Macedonian  war  ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
anv  more  of  it  was  ever  written,  although  it  has  been  asserted  that 
a  second  volume  was  burnt  by  the  author.  Raleigh's  History,  as 
a  record  of  facts,  has  long  been  superseded  ;  the  interest  it  pos- 

by  Mr.  S])erldm<)c,  Lond.  1857,  el  aeq.  The  reader  may  also  be  referred  to  a  remark 
able  volume,  entitled  Francis  Bacon  of  Venilam,  by  Kuno  Fischer  ;  translated 
trom  the  German  by  John  Oxenford,  Lond.  ISi"^ 


HISTORICAL   WKITERS.  61S 

sesses  at  the  present  day  is  derived  almost  entirely  from  its  literary 
merits,  and  from  a  few  passages  in  which  the  author  takes  occasion 
to  allude  to  circumstances  that  have  fallen  within  his  own  experi- 
ence. Much  of  it  is  written  without  any  ambition  of  eloquence  ; 
but  the  style,  even  where  it  is  most  careless,  is  still  lively  and  ex- 
citing, from  a  tone  of  the  actual  world  which  it  preserves,  and  a 
certain  frankness  and  heartiness  coming  from  Raleigh's  profession 
and  his  warm  impetuous  character.  It  is  not  disfigured  by  any  of 
the  petty  pedantries  to  some  one  or  other  of  which  most  of  the 
writers  of  books  in  that  day  gave  way  more  or  less,  and  it  has  alto- 
gether comparatively  little  of  the  taint  of  age  upon  it ;  while  in 
some  passages  the  composition,  without  losing  anything  of  its  natu- 
ral grace  and  heartiness,  is  wrought  up  to  great  rhetorical  polish 
and  elevation. 

Another  celebrated  historical  work  of  this  time  is  Richard 
Knolles's  History  of  the  Turks,  published  in  1610.  Johnson,  in 
one  of  his  Ramblers,  has  awarded  to  Knolles  the  first  place  among 
Eno-lish  historians ;  and  Mr.  Hallam  concurs  in  thinking  that  his 
style  and  power  of  narration  have  not  been  too  highly  extolled  by 
that  critic.  "  His  descriptions,"  continues  Mr.  Hallam,  "are  vivid 
and  animated ;  circumstantial,  but  not  to  feebleness  ;  his  characters 

are   drawn  with  a   strong  pencil In  the  style  of  Knolles 

there  is  sometimes,  as  Johnson  has  hinted,  a  slight  excess  of  desire 
to  make  every  phrase  effective  ;  but  he  is  exempt  from  the  usual 
blemishes  of  his  age  ;  and  his  command  of  the  language  is  so  ex- 
tensive, that  we  should  not  err  in  placing  him  among  the  first  of 
our  elder  writers."  ^  Much  of  this  praise,  however,  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  given  to  the  uniformity  or  regularity  of  Knolles's  style  ; 
the  chief  fault  of  which  perhaps  is,  that  it  is  too  continuously  elab- 
orated and  sustained  for  a  long  work.  We  have  already  mentioned 
Samuel  Daniel's  History  of  England  from  the  Conquest  to  the 
reign  of  Edward  III.,  which  was  published  in  1618.  It  is  of  little 
historical  value,  but  is  remarkable  for  the  same  simple  ease  and 
purity  of  language  which  distinguish  Daniel's  verse.  The  contri- 
bution to  this  department  of  literature  of  all  those  that  the  early 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century  produced,  which  is  at  the  same 
time  the  most  valuable  as  an  original  authority  and  the  most  mas- 
terly in  its  execution,  is  undoubtedly  Bacon's  History  of  the  reign 
of  Henry  VII. 

1  Lit.  of  Eur.  iii.  372. 


620  ENGLISH    LITERATURE   AND    LANGUAGE. 

The  series  of  popular  national  chronicles  was  "continned  in  this 
period,  f'rm  the  piiblication  of  Edward  Hall's  Union  of  the  Two 
Noble  and  Illustrious  Families  of  York  and  Lancaster,  in  1548,  by 
that  of  Richard  Grafton's  Chronicle  at  Large,  down  to  the  First 
Year  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  1569  ;  of  Raphael  Holinshed's  Chroiu"- 
cles  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  in  1577  ;  and  by  the  vari- 
ous publications  of  the  laborious  antiquaries  John  Stow  and  John 
Speed  :  namely,  Stow's  Summary  of  the  English  Chronicles,  of 
which  he  published  many  editions  betAveen  1565  and  1598  ;  his 
Annals,  also  frequently  re]n'inted  with  corrections  and  enlarge- 
ments between  1573  and  1600  ;  his  Survey  of  London,  first  pub- 
lished in  1598,  and  again  with  additions  in  1603  ;  and  Speed's 
Theatre  of  the  Empire  of  Great  Britain,  1606,  and  his  History  of 
Great  Britain,  coming  down  to  the  accession  of  James  I.,  1614. 
These  various  works  of  Stow  and  Speed  rank  among  the  head 
sources  or  fountains  of  our  knowledge  hi  the  department  of  na- 
tional antiquities. 


CLASSICAL  LEARNING. 

With  the  exception  of  a  magnificent  edition  of  Chrysostom,  in 
eight  volumes  folio,  by  Sir  Henry  Savile,  printed  at  Eton,  where 
Savile  was  provost  of  the  College,  in  1612,  scarcely  any  gi-eat  work 
in  the  department  of  ancient  scholarship  appeared  in  England  in 
the  portion  of  the  seventeenth  century  Avhich  preceded  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  Civil  War.  It,  however,  produced  a  number  of 
vvorks  written  in  I^atin  by  Englishmen,  which  still  retain  more  or 
less  celebrity  ;  among  others,  the  illustrious  Camden's  Britannia, 
first  published  in  1586,  but  not  enlarged  to  the  form  in  which  its 
author  ultimately  left  it  till  the  appearance  of  the  sixth  edition,  in 
1607  ;  the  same  writer's  Annales  Rerum  Anglicarnm  regnante 
Elizabetha,  the  first  part  of  which  was  printed  in  1615,  the  sequel 
not  till  after  Camden's  death  ;  John  Barclay's  tAvo  poetical  ro- 
mances of  the  Euphorinio,  the  first  part  of  which  was  published 
in  1603,  and  the  more  famous  Argenis,  1621  ;  Lord  Herbert's 
treatise  De  Veritate,  16^4  ;  and  the  Mare  Claiisum\  the  Uxor 
Hebraica,  and  other  Avorks  of  tlie  most  learned  John  Selden. 

KXD    OF    VOL.    I. 


vn 


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